For the Time Being: The Lodger
by Aietradaea
Summary: Plot bunny stew for Brownbug, in the form of an AU of season 5's "The Lodger" - with the Master added in the name of fun and angst. Enough said, I think.
1. The Houses Have Voices

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Doctor Who, or the season 5 episode "The Lodger". The Master is my muse, though - how this turned out is entirely his fault! This will be the only disclaimer - I see this as a _very_ long oneshot, it's just split into chapters to make it easier to read.

**Warnings:** Not much worse than the original episode, really - the semi-nudity, possible slash (*gasp*. Nah - nothing actually _happens_ - it's just a possible interpretation), people dying painfully and leaving a stain on a ceiling (yuck!). Perhaps a bit stronger this time 'round, though, and I briefly touch on social stigmas; and there's a few big dollops of angst courtesy of that AU element - so maybe a warning for Mood Whiplash? Enough for a T, I think, but probably a mild one.

**Summary and Background:** Basically, this is the whole of the season 5 episode "The Lodger" reworked with an added AU element - the Master. I started off writing a short little humourous thing for the very awesome Brownbug...and then I got a bit carried away and ended up doing the whole episode - so here ya go, Brownbug - my biggest plot bunny stew to date!

...And _then_ I realized that I knew what I would do for every Eleven episode to date and my AU now had a whole backstory! So, the origins are as far back as "Silence in the Library", and involve Donna, River and Rose - but to cut a very long story short, the Master was saved at the end of "End of Time" but Ten still regenerated. We now have Eleven and Amy (and Rory for a while) travelling in the TARDIS with the Master, sticking more-or-less to the plot of season 5. It's not all happy, everything-solved fix-it, though. The Master still hears the drums, and he's still a bit messed up from that botched resurrection in "End of Time" - the Doctor's TARDIS helps with that, though, and they're both bonded to it now. However, it does mean that he needs to stay in the TARDIS most of the time - he can't survive without it. Amy doesn't know much about him, other than what she heard of his fictional "Harold Saxon" life, and that he's a Time Lord who calls himself the Master - she doesn't know about the drums, or what he's done in the past. She says he's insane, but she's not sure whether she's serious or not.

I've changed a lot of the dialogue from the original episode, so please don't point out that a line is wrong - it's intentional, as I am a strong believer that if you throw an AU element into an episode, things WILL change! Besides, it's more fun that way - who wants to read (or write) a blow-by-blow transcript of a whole episode with half the lines allocated to a new character? There's also an added twist to the whole cracks thing...but I shall leave you to find the rest for yourself! ;)

* * *

><p>A rushing groan filled the air in the silent street, rising and falling as a solid blue shape gradually phased into view under the bare trees of the park. The TARDIS had barely finished materializing before the door was thrown open and the Doctor peered out, stopping short at the sight of the neat, red-brick houses and parked cars on a simple suburban street.<p>

"No, Amy, it's definitely not the fifth moon of Cyndakalista," he said, thinly disguised disappointment lacing his voice. "I think I can see-"

"Oh, _what_ a surprise!" a second voice broke in from inside the TARDIS, and the Doctor stepped out onto the lawn to allow the white-haired head of the Master to emerge and survey their surroundings. "You know, I'm starting to worry about that TARDIS of yours, Doctor – even she can't tear hersel- _oof_!" A jarring _bang_ rocked the TARDIS and the door swung shut, slamming at the Master's back and knocking him out onto the grass. Leaves swirled around him as the wheezing of the capsule dematerializing began and the Doctor threw himself at the door.

"Amy!" he bellowed.

"The TARDIS!" The Master scrambled to his feet, but the blue box was already little more than an afterimage and in seconds was gone, leaving the two Time Lords staring with panic in their eyes at the empty space between two trees.

"Amy!" the Doctor was still shouting futilely into the air.

"Doctor – the TARDIS…we're _stuck_…"

"Amy," the Doctor breathed as if he hadn't heard. "Amy…"

...

Inside the TARDIS, Amy was thrown off her feet as the whole console room shook violently. White-hot sparks flew from the controls, fizzing showers that poured from the circuitry with every surge of the time rotor. Gasping with the effort, she fought to regain her footing, clinging to the handle at the bottom of the screen and pulling herself up until she could see the display.

"Doctor?" she called, gripping the handle tightly as the room tilted and swayed. "It says we're on Earth. Essex, Colchester." There was a final lurch and the room stilled, but the pumping of the time rotor continued and Amy realized with a stab of trepidation that she knew that pumping. "It's taking off again." No reply. Hesitantly, she released the handle and looked slowly around the brightly lit room towards the door, which was shut. "Doctor? Mister Saxon? Can you hear me?"

...

Outwardly, the house appeared fairly ordinary. Like the adjoining houses, it was a double-storey building of plain orange brick. Whitewashed wooden frames bordered clean, high bay windows and a red, wooden door. If it hadn't been for the voice, the young man strolling past with a backpack slung over one shoulder probably wouldn't have even paused.

"Hello?" it said. "Hello, please? Hello?" The young man turned his head from side to side, searching for the source of the voice, which was tinny and somewhat electronic sounding. "I n-need your help." His eyes fell on the small speaker beside the doorbell of the house and he approached uncertainly. As he passed through the open gate in the low brick wall and up the step of the short garden path, the voice continued. "There's been an accident. Please…help me…" Reaching the door, he examined the speaker, which had two buttons: 79A printed on a label beside the first and 79B scrawled beside the second in biro. As he waited, there was a buzz and the door clicked and opened a little way; bewildered, the young man pushed it open and entered the front porch of the house.

Inside, he found himself in a dimly lit landing which continued down into the rest of the house. Directly in front of him was a steep, straight staircase – the source of the light came from here and appeared to be faulty. Fizzing in and out, the single lightbulb failed to illuminate the features of a figure who stood at the top of the stairs, one hand on the banister, a wooden door cracked open at his back.

"Hello?" the young man called tentatively.

"Please, will you help me?" the figure pleaded. The voice sounded male, old, tired; the young man pushed the front door shut, squinting into the flickering gloom.

"Help you?" he echoed. "What's wrong?"

"Something terrible's happened," the silhouette replied without moving. "Please, help me." As the young man ascended the creaking stairs towards him, he retreated through the door behind him, leaving it ajar for the young man to walk through – and noiselessly, it swung shut at his back.


	2. Omelette du Fromage

The occupant of the upstairs flat couldn't have been further from Craig's mind as he moved about the kitchen, teapot in one hand, spoon in the other. Behind him, a woman raised her head – something had caught her eye and she stopped, placing the keys in her hand down on the kitchen table.

"Craig, what's that on the ceiling?" she asked.

"What's what on the ceiling?" Craig replied without turning.

"That." The woman pointed, and Craig glanced up to see what appeared to be a patch of black smudges spread about one corner of the ceiling and creeping about a foot down the wall. "It's coming from upstairs. Who lives up there again?"

"Just some bloke," Craig shrugged, returning his attention to the tea and spooning sugar into the mugs.

"Hm." The woman pursed her lips thoughtfully at the dark patch, but turned away to settle herself on the squashy leather sofa of the living room that opened onto the kitchen. Unseen by either occupant of the room, the smudges began to darken, the edge of the patch crawling outwards and downwards across the white paint, spreading until it had almost doubled in size.

"So what's the plan tonight?" The tea finished, Craig headed over to the sofa with two mugs, handing one to the woman who smiled. "Pizza-booze-telly?"

"Yeah, pizza-booze-telly," she agreed. A resounding crash startled her from her tea and she raised her eyes to the ceiling with a frown.

"What is he _doing_ up there?" she wondered. From the landing came the sound of fizzing as the lightbulb glowed brightly and then died again, and Craig eyed the ceiling, puzzled. "You put the advert up yet?" the woman added.

"Yeah – did it today," Craig answered, dismissing the bizarre sounds as he placed his mug on the coffee table beside the woman. "Paper shop window. One, furniture available immediately, shared kitchen, bathroom, with 27-year-old male, non-smoker, £400 PCM – per calendar month – suit a young professional," he recited.

"Mm, sounds ideal," the woman approved. A trilling of a cellphone came from behind them and she stood to answer it. "That's your mission in life, Craig – find me a man."

"Yeah," Craig laughed, not quite meeting her eyes. "Otherwise you'll have to settle for me."

"You'll have to settle for me first." A smile crossed Craig's face and he fidgeted, averting his head towards the bookshelf while the woman retrieved her cellphone from a jacket pocket. "Oh – Melina again. What?" she demanded of the caller, probably more harshly than she had intended. "Right…" As she breathed an exasperated sigh, Craig found his attention once more wandering to the patch encroaching on the clean white paint of his ceiling – like mould, it looked, or maybe dry rot… Curious, he stepped up onto a footstool for a closer look. "Yeah, but I've kind of got plans," the woman was saying. He reached one arm up to brush at the patch, but at her next words, he drew back and turned, indignant. "No, it's nothing important – it's just Craig."

"Oh, thanks Soph!"

"Sorry – you know what I mean," the woman, Sophie, apologized in a whisper, covering the mouthpiece of the phone. "O.K., I'll talk…uh…I'll talk to Craig. O.K." Crestfallen, Craig stepped down from the footstool and did his best to swallow his disappointment at the all-too-familiar apologetic look on Sophie's face. "Ugh – now she's having a Dylan crisis on top of the Claire crisis. It could be another all-nighter. I'm sorry but I really should…go…do you mind if I…?"

"No, not at all," Craig answered quickly, with what he hoped was a casual enough air to mask his dismay. "No, honestly, 'course not – go."

"No, 'cause I could stay-"

"No-"

"I mean, we've got plans…"

"Just pizza…" Craig found that he was slapping a pamphlet against his open hand and tossed it over his shoulder with a shrug.

"Yeah, just pizza…" She was hesitating, he was _sure_ – was she hesitating? He realized he was holding his breath and released it with a sigh. "Right. I'm going."

"All right then. Well, um…I'll see you soon." She had picked up her coat now – and did he sound too keen?

"Yeah."

"All right – and…give me a call, and…I hope everything's O.K…"

"Thanks – sorry." There was genuine regret in her eyes as she pulled the door closed behind her; Craig opened his mouth, but whatever he intended to say – and he told himself he didn't know – died in his throat, and then she was gone.

Out in the hall, Sophie could still feel the guilt tugging at her, a fidgety weight on her conscience as the door clicked shut. She leaned her head back against the door with a sigh, but as she made to move towards the front door, a crash rumbled from the top of the staircase and she glanced up in alarm. For a second, she could have sworn she saw the outline of a man watching her, reflected in the stained glass of the door, but the momentary glimpse retreated as quickly as it had appeared and she hurried from the house.

Craig was still restlessly pacing his dining room minutes after Sophie had departed. He clicked his tongue, swung his arms, snapped his fingers; he felt cut loose, at a loss for how to occupy himself, and he drifted aimlessly about the room until he came to stand before the fridge, his gaze falling to rest on a photograph as familiar to him by now as the back of his hand: New Year's Day, just the two of them, and she was beaming into the camera, more carefree than he could remember seeing her – just _free_…

A thought replayed itself relentlessly in his head until he forced himself to voice it aloud, as if he were scolding himself for his own inactivity.

"You should tell her." He shrugged again, with tense shoulders. "Just…just tell her. I love you. I love you…" How could three words mean _so_ much? Such simple words, but somehow, they seemed to stick at the back of his throat and by the time they emerged, they sounded foreign, strange…would _she_ think they sounded strange, coming from him? "Oh, just…" He tried a new tack – casual, offbeat, perhaps? "Hey – I don't know if you knew…" No. Wrong. He groaned in frustration and his head thudded forwards onto the fridge door. Seconds later, though, his heart nearly skipped a beat at the sound of the doorbell buzzing and he caught sight of the set of keys on the kitchen table, distinctive with their fluffy pink pom-pom keyring. "Every time!" he exclaimed, scooping up the keyring and hurrying for the door. The bell pealed again and he swallowed hard. "I love you." Well, he had another chance, and he wouldn't let it slip. "I love you." Perhaps if he repeated it enough times, it would come easier when… "I love you." He was almost at the door now. "I love you." This was it. He threw the door open and the words almost flew from his mouth as he stepped into the doorway. "I love you!"

His heart, which had been accelerating with every step he took closer to the door, gave a little flutter and sank like a capsizing ship at the quizzical looks on the faces of two men who stood on his doorstep.

"Well that's good, 'cause we're your new lodgers," one grinned. He appeared the younger of the two, with a mop of brown hair that fell across his forehead and a lively twinkle in his green eyes. His dress sense struck Craig as somewhat unconventional in the usual sense – a tweed jacket, pressed shirt and bow tie; the second man couldn't have been more different, clad entirely in black, the hood of his rather shabby sweatshirt pulled up over his head, partly concealing his face. The first moved forward, but before Craig could even register his words, the second had reached out and snatched Sophie's keyring from Craig's still-upraised hand.

"See – they still adore me," the second man muttered, raising his head just long enough for Craig to see him wink.

"B-but I only put the advert up today – I didn't…" Craig trailed off – he was _sure_ he had seen the face of that second man before somewhere. "Aren't you some bloke off the telly?"

"Oh, no – no, definitely not," the first man said quickly. "No – you've never seen us before, we're just passing through. Aren't you lucky?" The black-clad man stepped back and was eyeing the upstairs window, and as the light fell on his face, Craig realized where he recognized the features.

"You look like that Prime Minister," he blurted out. "Harold Saxon, wasn't it?" Immediately, he felt if possible even more idiotic than he had already felt – telling a complete stranger that he looked like a dead Prime Minister, even if the resemblance _was_ striking.

"No – absolutely not." The first man shook his head hard. "Distant cousin."

"Cousin's nephew," the second put in.

"Twice…three times removed," the first added. "On his half-uncle's side."

"Right." Craig nodded slowly, closed his mouth – which he realized at that point was still hanging open – and opened it again, but all that emerged was a stutter. "Uh…"

"Not quite young professionals – more sort of…" the younger-looking man began. "Ancient amateurs, perhaps."

"Well, one of us could be," the hooded man smirked. "Amateur, that is." The first man hardly appeared to notice the jibe – almost as if he had expected it – and moved to step around Craig, who hastily shook himself.

"H-hang on – there's only one room," he protested.

"Don't worry, we'll manage," the man breezed. "Here – rent. Is that a lot? Is that enough for two? I can double it, if it's any trouble…I'm never sure, really…" To his surprise, Craig found a paper bag thrust into his hands – where had _that_ come from? – and he opened it cautiously. He was disconcerted to find the bag half-filled with crisp bank notes – but they were genuine, he had little doubt. By the time he had torn his eyes away, the two men had pushed past and were standing in the hallway, eyes fixed on the fizzing lightbulb at the top of the stairs.

"So…you two are…" They turned to face him and he wriggled uncomfortably, averting his eyes. "Flatmates? Well, I mean, obviously flatmates now, but…uh…"

"We're mor-" The hooded man went to answer, but was cut off abruptly.

"Oh, it's complicated."

"Ah – I see." Craig nodded, unable to prevent his eyes from moving from one to the other. "Right, that's fine…absolutely fine…"

"I'm the Doctor, by the way," the brown-haired man said cheerfully, and Craig nearly dropped the paper bag when the Doctor took him by the shoulders and pecked him quickly on each cheek. "That's how we greet each other nowadays, isn't it?" The other man lowered his hood, revealing bleached-white hair and a face rough with stubble. To Craig's relief, he extended his hand and his pale features spread into a winning smile that would have been worthy of any politician – Craig couldn't decide whether it reassured him or only unsettled him further.

"I am th-"

"And this is…" the Doctor interrupted, but then trailed off with a glance at the white-haired man. "He's…"

"Kaiser Stream. Don't mind him – he's just a bit…" His hazel eyes flicked upwards and he beamed as he shook Craig's hand firmly.

"Craig Owens." Kaiser released his hand and slipped Sophie's keys back into his palm; he closed his fingers around them and returned the smile before he could help himself. "Say – how did you know the ad-"

"Who lives upstairs?" the Doctor cut in suddenly. Craig blinked.

"Uh…no-one – I mean, just…someone, some-"

"What does he look like?" the Doctor demanded.

"Just...normal, you know..."

"Really, Doctor," said Kaiser with an exaggerated sigh. "I'm sure Mr. Owens would rather be showing us our room than answering your inane questions. Which way is our room?" He turned his gaze on Craig, and Craig found himself swallowing any objection he might have been about to make, although he nearly choked on it.

"Your room...right, of course, this way..."

He led the way down the corridor that ran alongside the staircase, passing a kitchen, bathroom and his own bedroom, and eventually reaching the vacant bedroom at the back of the house, where he opened the door and stepped back to allow the two men to see inside. Kaiser stepped through first, and if Craig had been able to see his face, he might have noticed that the smile now seemed rather forced. The room appeared comfortable enough - small and plainly furnished with cupboards along one wall, a mirror and small artificial fireplace, and a double bed with bedside tables in the centre of the room - not luxury by a long stretch, but clean and certainly habitable.

"Only one be- ow!" Craig missed the surreptitious movement as Kaiser stepped hard on the Doctor's toe, and there was an uncomfortable pause.

"I'll just…leave you to…ah…discuss it, shall I?" Craig mumbled and slipped out of the room, clicking the door shut after him.

The moment he was gone, the Master rounded on the Doctor, who jumped.

"What?"

"You _had_ to go and say that, didn't you?"

"Say what?"

"'It's complicated'," the Master mimicked.

"Well, it…_oh_. Right. Yes – well, I didn't mean…" Comprehension dawned on the Doctor's face, but it did little to placate the Master.

"Couldn't you have said we were brothers or something?" he snapped irritably.

"Not really, no – humans, you see, tend to look sort of _similar_ when they're related." The Doctor grinned amicably at the Master's growing impatience and added, "And I could hardly have said we're 'mortal enemies', could I? Nice try, by the way, 'Kaiser'." Now it was the Master's turn to appear baffled.

"Yeah? So what? At least I came up with something."

"It doesn't actually mean Master, you know." The Doctor leaned back against the wall and straightened his bow tie with both hands. Several pleasant images crossed the Master's mind of ways in which the little scrap of material could be used as a deadly weapon; he crossed the room and began patting the bed to hide the twitching at the corners of his mouth. "And as for 'Stream'…brain like yours, I _did_ expect a bit more originality."

"Brain like yours, I'm not at all surprised you lost the TARDIS." Straightening up, the Master raised his hand and watched as the flesh flickered briefly translucent. "Don't suppose there's much chance you'd just let me blast down the door of that upstairs flat and incinerate whoever's in there."

"Your life force is breaking down again already," the Doctor observed, pretending he hadn't heard. "Come on, let's get something to eat – I expect you're starving."

"_Finally_, something we agree on," the Master muttered, shoving his hands in his pocket and stalking after the Doctor.

In the kitchen, Craig was leaning on the back of the sofa, the pink pom-pom keyring in one hand, absently squeezing it as his eyes lingered on the photograph on the fridge door. The creak of the door jerked him out of his reverie and he tossed the keychain onto the coffee table as Kaiser and the Doctor entered.

"It's perfect," the Doctor announced. "We'll take it. Now – lunch. You're hungry, aren't you, Craig? Can I call you Craig? Yes? Perfect." Craig had hardly had a chance to raise himself from the back of the sofa when the two were already opening the fridge.

"Oh – I haven't got anything in – I'll…" He trailed off – they didn't seem to be listening. "I'll just…watch you eat the bacon, then." Which was, unless he was very much mistaken, exactly what Kaiser had proceeded to do. The Doctor had whipped out a frying pan from a cupboard and was tossing ingredients haphazardly into it, but stopped short, head turned towards the corner of the room.

"Ah – now _that_ would be…dry rot?" Following the Doctor's gaze, Craig found his attention called for the second time that morning to the dark, roughly circular patch on the ceiling.

"Might be mildew, or damp – I'll get someone in," he answered.

"No – I'll fix it," the Doctor said quickly. "I'm good with rot. Call me the Rotmeister…" A violent spluttering sound caused them both to turn.

"'Scuseme?" Kaiser choked through a mouthful of cold ham – had he eaten _all_ the bacon already? "Rot_meister_?"

"Well I can't say 'Rotdoktor' – that sounds like a cleaning product. Rot_doktor_." The Doctor rolled the word around on his tongue like something he might have eaten in a foreign restaurant. "No, don't call me that. Rot-"

"_I'm_ the Rotmeister," Kaiser interrupted peevishly. "He's the Rotdoktor." With a petulant glare at the Doctor, he returned to the contents of the fridge.

"Whatever," Craig shrugged.

Just watching the Doctor scurrying about the kitchen was making him feel twitchy, so he settled himself on the sofa and waited.

"Who's the girl on the fridge?" the Doctor called out.

"Sophie." Craig couldn't help turning to glance once more at the photograph. "Friend."

"Girlfriend?" Kaiser put in, opening and closing cupboards loudly.

"Friend who's a girl." Craig tried to adopt a light, nonchalant tone. "There's…nothing…going on."

"Completely normal, works for me," said the Doctor over the sizzle of the frying pan.

"Yeah – I met her a year ago at the call centre," Craig explained. "Phones were going down, though – boss is using a totally rubbish business model…"

"I suppose they got rid of the Archangel Network," Kaiser mused.

"Yeah – had to redo all the systems, new numbers and everything. Hasn't been the same since – pity, really, it was…oh, sorry," he apologized. "You probably don't want to know – your…fourth cousin, was it? Anyway – Sophie. No – business models." He shook his head, embarrassed. "I know what they should do – I've got a plan all worked out – but…" His shoulders sagged, voice dropping mournfully. "I'm just a phone drone – I can't go running in saying I know best…" With a laugh, he shook his head. "Why am I telling _you_ this? I don't even know you!"

"I've just got one of those faces," the Doctor replied. "People never stop blurting out their plans while I'm around." He winked at Kaiser, who rolled his eyes and picked up a block of cheese that the Doctor had just grated the end off into the frying pan; the Doctor snatched it back. "Where's the ham gone? No, of course not, should have known…_alors_, _pas de viande…voilà_!_ Omelette du fromage_! With a flourish of the spatula, he deftly scooped three light, fluffy golden omelettes out of the pan and onto plates. Kaiser quickly seized one and, using the spatula as a rather unwieldy spoon, began devouring the omelette as though he hadn't eaten for days.

"Steady on, mate!" Craig chuckled, picking up his own plate. "You'll make yourself sick."

"Oh, he'll be fine," the Doctor shrugged. "Something'll appear sooner or later – ought to help. Has helped. Unless he's done something to upset her…" Rather than allow another awkward silence to follow the cryptic statement, Craig hazarded a guess.

"A…doctor?" There was a grating squeal of metal on ceramic as Kaiser viciously bisected his last piece of omelette with the spatula.

"I don't need a _doctor_."


	3. Socks, Scramblers & the Sawtooth Plotter

The pumping of the time rotor almost drowned out Amy's frustrated pleading with the time capsule as her hands hovered uncertainly over the console, moving from one bizarrely-shaped control to another.

"Come on, which one, which _one_ – no!" For a tantalising moment, the vibrations beneath her feet ceased and she could perhaps imagine the blue box resting on solid ground – before the platform rocked once more and they were off, lights dimming as the time rotor kicked in to stabilise the TARDIS in the time vortex.

"Why won't you land?" she groaned, gripping the handrail for another bumpy ride.

...

"That was _incredible_!" Pushing back his empty plate, Craig flopped back into the sofa with a contented sigh. "That was _absolutely_ brilliant – where did you learn to cook?"

"Probably the Axillary Moon of Phacochoerus," Kaiser put in from where he sat behind them, perched on the countertop with his legs crossed. "I'd check your shirt before you go out, if I were you." Caught by the man's infectious grin, a baffled Craig couldn't help but laugh, and apparently unperturbed, the Doctor settled back in his armchair and folded his hands with the look of a guest trying his best to seem at ease.

"You're not much of a traveller, are you, Craig?" he said.

"Nah." Craig shook his head indifferently. "Why should I? Nice enough here, isn't it? Besides, there's…" He trailed off, averting his eyes with a discomfiture the Doctor couldn't have failed to notice, as the other man's gaze drifted down to Craig's hand and Craig realized, mortified, that he held Sophie's fluffy pink keyring in his hand, rolling it absent-mindedly between his thumb and forefinger. "Anyway," he said loudly, hastily stuffing the keyring in his pocket. "What makes you think I don't travel?"

"Your sofa," came Kaiser's voice. "You're starting to look like it." Craig wasn't quite sure what to make of that – certainly, the words themselves could have been no more than gentle teasing, but there was something of a malicious edge that was never far from Kaiser's voice. The man sprang down from the countertop in a smooth, agile movement and strolled across the room to peer curiously at the corner of the ceiling, and Craig found himself glancing self-consciously down at himself sprawled in the comfortable leather.

"Right," he announced, stirring himself into action and pushing himself up. "These are your keys." He grabbed something from another bench top and hurried over to the Doctor, who bounded to his feet.

"We can stay?"

"Yeah." Kaiser appeared to be ignoring the whole process, almost as if he had expected nothing less, and Craig quickly thrust the keys into the Doctor's eagerly outstretched hand before he could change his mind. First – and second, and third – impressions aside, he settled for the one thing he could be sure of. "You can cook – that's good enough for me." Happily, the Doctor slipped the keys into his pocket.

"My keys – my room. Me with a room, a room of one's own…" he beamed. Kaiser cleared his throat loudly, but it fell on deaf ears to the delighted Doctor. "My place – ha!"

"Oh, and by the way," Craig lowered his voice and the Doctor met his eyes expectantly. "Me and Mark, we had an arrangement – if you two ever want me…you know…out of your hair, just give me a shout. O.K.?" He winked; the Doctor winked back, and there was a pause. Craig blinked – had he offended him somehow? Had he said something too personal? He opened his mouth to try and stammer a hasty apology, but the Doctor cut in.

"Why would I want that?"

"Well, you know…" Craig shuffled his feet; he could feel his ears reddening. "Bit of…time to yourselves, maybe? Dinner for two?"

"_Oh_!" The Doctor nodded understandingly. "Oh, right – yes, he'd eat dinner for six if he got the chance. Don't worry – we'll keep the kitchen tidy. Spotless. You'll never know we'd been there."

...

The echo of heels on concrete rang out dismally down the lamplit street. Every few steps, the steady _clop-clop_ would be accompanied by a barely disguised sniff or a shaky breath. It was close to midnight, but the young woman trudging through the pools of light cast by the streetlights was alone.

Or at least, she had hoped she was.

"Hello? Stop. Please – can you hear me?"

Through a curtain of dishevelled hair damp with tears and sweat, she turned her weary eyes in the direction of the voice.

"I need your help. Please – my little girl's hurt."

She no longer had the fight in her to refuse. Hitching up the strap of her trailing handbag in one hand, she turned down the garden path and shuffled towards the red, wooden door from which the tinny voice pleaded.

The door was unlocked and swung open at her push, and she stepped cautiously into a darkened hallway, the only source of light a flickering, bare lightbulb at the top of a steep flight of stairs. Standing beneath the lightbulb, features obscured by the dancing shadows, a lone figure stood with an illuminated door at his back.

"I'm so sorry, but will you help me? Please," the figure implored.

"Help you?" the woman repeated, taking her first step up the creaking wooden staircase towards the figure.

...

"Earth to Pond, Earth to Pond, come in Pond…" The curtains were drawn, the door securely locked, and the Doctor bounced lightly where he sat on the springy mattress, awaiting Amy's voice in a delicate earpiece that sat ear. On the end of the bed, the Master was pulling off his black workboots and inspecting with distaste the ruined, tattered remains of his socks. Evidently, they just hadn't been made for chasing monsters through 19th century streets. Feeling the Doctor's eyes on his back, he glanced up to a teasing grin.

"Well, you always did dress for the occ-"

"DOCTOR!"

The Master couldn't help a snicker as Amy's piercing voice reverberated suddenly from the earpiece and the Doctor leaped about a foot in the air.

"Would you mind not wrecking the new earpiece, Pond?" he snapped, rubbing his ear, and the Master heard a murmur of subdued apology from the human girl. He turned away and pulled off his socks, dropping them to the floor in disgust and poking them under the bed.

"How's the TARDIS coping?" the Doctor was asking.

"Mm, see for yourself." In the console room of the time capsule, Amy raised her mouthpiece and moved it back and forth, and the Doctor frowned. The time rotor was still functioning, but its usual smooth undulating rush was halting, broken by alarming clunks from deep within the console, and there was a grating, high-pitched quality to its tone.

"Ooh, nasty…" he muttered. "She's locked in a materialization loop, trying to land again, but she can't…"

"Have I ever mentioned the knack of this regeneration of yours for stating the _blindingly obvious_?" the Master snorted, now opening and closing the various empty cupboards and drawers in the room.

"Is that Mister Saxon?" Amy demanded. "What's he doing?"

"Looking for new footwear, I believe," the Doctor replied, watching the Master's fruitless search out of the corner of his eye.

...

Lying flat in bed, cellphone propped against one ear, Craig fished in the paper bag by his side and pulled out a wad of banknotes. Fingering absently through them, it was only the soft cough in his ear that reminded him suddenly of Sophie on the other end of the line.

"Well, I mean…they seem…" He hesitated, suddenly stuck for words, and realized for the first time that he actually still couldn't make head or tail of his new lodgers. Certainly, Kaiser had seemed the more normal at first, with his handshake and something of a reassuring air of authority. There was still something about the man, though, that gave Craig the vaguest sense of unease…not quite distrust – maybe too much trust, if anything. Despite the second stranger's distinct peculiarities, Craig was finding himself warming more towards the Doctor than Kaiser. "They're…well, I guess they're…"

"They had three grand with them in a paper bag," Sophie supplied. Her tone sounded sceptical, and Craig couldn't blame her. "Wait – the 'Doctor'? And does 'Kaiser' sound like a normal name to you? What if they're on the run?"

"We would've heard something, wouldn't we?" said Craig, still somewhat unsure. "Don't they show things like that on the telly?"

"Craig!" Sophie exclaimed. "They might be wanted by the police! I think you should check, just in case."

"Nah – I can't do that, Soph."

"Why not?"

"Well, it's just…you know…" Craig crumpled the cash in his fist and stuffed it back into the paper bag. "I bet they get stuff like that all the time. You know – being…well, a couple. They're just blokes. Maybe they're foreign or something – the Doctor was a bit confused about the money."

...

"Oh, great." The Doctor could almost imagine Amy rolling her eyes in exasperation. "So he's looking for something to keep his toes warm – while I'm stuck in a spaceship being thrown around time and space. What about that upstairs flat? _You_ said whatever's stopping the TARDIS landing is up there – now why isn't he up there sorting it out?"

"_We_," the Doctor answered carefully, "will sort it out as soon as we know what it is. Anything that can stop the TARDIS landing is big. Scary big…"

"Wait – are you _scared_?" Amy sounded as though she couldn't quite believe her ears. "Two Time Lords against one alien…time…_thing_?"

"Exactly – it's a _thing_. We can't go up there until we know what it is and how to deal with it. And it is _vital_ that that…man…upstairs doesn't realize who and what we are. So no sonic, no advanced technology, no 'I am the Master and you will _obey_'! I can only use _this_," he gestured to the earpiece, "'cause we're on scramble. To anyone else hearing this conversation, we're talking absolute gibberish."

"Maybe you should try turning it off some day," the Master put in with a smirk, standing on tiptoe to reach a wooden cupboard high on the wall. He managed to flick it open and several small, cobwebbed items fell out, abandoned by lodgers past – an old-fashioned shower radio, a dusty plastic bottle, a yellowed magazine and… "Ha! Socks!"

...

"A bow tie? Are you serious?" Sophie was laughing now, incredulous. Craig, however, found his attention called away once more by the two voices he could hear emitting through the thin walls from the room next door. There was still something…odd…

"Hang on a sec," he interrupted, pushing the paper bag to one side and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

"What?" Sophie whispered, but Craig had lowered the phone from his ear and was heading over to the wall. "Craig? Craig – don't _listen_ to them!"

"Popping orange juice," the Doctor's energetic voice was saying. Craig's eyebrows furrowed and he leaned in closer to the wall. "Real bean star buckle, red badger on the table, parakeet bedsocks in acoustic chimneys. Practical eruption in chicken dates – long, hardy spiral." Kaiser's somewhat softer voice cut in at that point.

"Burning in the reaper's iron claw." There was the creak of a cupboard door, and then, "Ha! Blood!" Craig shook his head. He must have misheard – they were obviously foreign after all.

...

"Now all we've got to do," the Doctor continued, as the Master shook out the pair of socks, "is pass as two ordinary human beings. Simple. What could possibly go wrong?"

"Mmm, let me think…" Amy drawled, voice already oozing sarcasm. "A Prime Minister who died two years ago, and a wardrobe that died eighty years ago. Yeah, what could _possibly_ go wrong?"

"Oh, so you're just going to be snide. No helpful hints?"

"Ask Mister Saxon – he lived on Earth for, like, a year and a half, didn't he? Let him do the talking – I'm sure that'll make him happy."

"He had fifteen telepathic satellites last time," the Doctor pointed out. He got to his feet and began pacing around the room, poking at unfamiliar items on the dresser. Stopping in front of a circular mirror that hung from the wall, he picked up a pair of sunglasses and perched them on the end of his nose. "And besides, he was in Parliament all the time. Nope – what we need is _normal_ blokes. What do normal blokes do?"

"They…watch telly, they play football, they go down the pub."

"We could do that… Hear that?" he called over his shoulder to the Master, pulling off the sunglasses and perching them on top of his thick, floppy hair. "You get to watch telly – apparently, that's actually _normal_."

"You sound _so_ surprised." He was pleased though, the Doctor could tell, even if his fellow Time Lord was doing a fair job of hiding it – but before he could make comment, a crash overhead startled them both into raising their heads. Seconds later, they both felt as the disturbance became more than a sound, jarring on their temporal senses like nails on a blackboard. Time itself began to bend around them, swinging dizzyingly back and forth; on the counter, the hands of two alarm clocks whirled and spun erratically, and the Doctor could hear Amy's cries of alarm and the pained rumbling of the TARDIS engines.

"Localized time loop," they both realized aloud.

"Local time distortion…" the Doctor hummed thoughtfully.

"Yuck," the Master grimaced. "Powerful one, too. Some sort of ripple in the temporal energy weave of this causal nexus – and I'd say…"

"…we're right…underneath…it," the Doctor finished; their eyes met and travelled uneasily upwards as time settled itself. A moment later, the Doctor clapped a hand to his ear.

"Will you two cut out that Time Lordy babbling and tell me _what is going on_?" Amy shrieked.

"All right, all right, no need for hysterics," the Doctor moaned, wincing. "Whatever's happening here is affecting the TARDIS…"

"Which is _what_?"

"…which is nothing to worry about. Not really. Well, it might-"

"Doctor!"

"No, no – just keep the zigzag plotter on full – that'll protect you," the Doctor said hastily, deliberately turning his back on the Master, who was mouthing something, eyebrows raised in disdain. He heard the series of clicks as the plotter was pulled, and then what could have been a small, hissing explosion and Amy's growl of irritation. "Amy – I said the _zigzag_ _plotter_."

"I pulled the zigzag plotter!" she snapped.

"Well, you're standing with the door behind you?"

"Yes!"

"O.K., take two steps to your…hey!" He felt the slightest crackling of heat at the side of his head and a hand snatched the earpiece from his ear.

"Forget the zigzag plotter." The Master didn't place the earpiece in his own ear, but held it to his mouth and spoke impatiently into the microphone. "To the left of the two golden gears sticking out of a panel divider, just under the cold water tap, there's a silver gearstick. Pull that three clicks towards you. If the lights go dim, push it back one." He tossed the earpiece onto the bed and watched while the Doctor's hands made vague motions in the air, trying to visualize the rapid commands – and then grabbed wildly at the earpiece.

"Amy, don't do it!" he shouted frantically. "Whatever he told you to do – don't do it!" Fumbling in his panic, he nearly dropped the delicate piece of technology, slipping it into his ear just in time to hear Amy's cool voice.

"It didn't explode."

"What do you mean it didn't explode – of _course_ it exploded!" the Doctor shot back, while the Master laughed aloud.

"Nope. Not a pop. No supernova, no…black hole. Not even a parking ticket."

"Oh. Right. Right…" the Doctor croaked weakly. His whole expression flooded with sheer relief and he sat down heavily on the bed. "Right…no, of course not…"

"Sooo…" He could just make out the sound of Amy's long fingernails tapping on the console.

"So, Pond," he said decisively, jumping up and throwing open several cupboards. "We've got work to do."

"Hey-" Amy's voice was cut off as, with a flick of a switch, the communication device was disconnected and the Doctor removed it from his ear and tossed it into a drawer beside the bed, slamming the drawer loudly.

"Zigzag plotter?" the Master snorted. "Really, Doctor, that's crude." Opening and closing cupboards and drawers with a series of hasty bangs, the Doctor did his utmost to feign temporary deafness, but the Master continued with the same infuriating derision in his voice. "Surely you would have remembered that the sawtooth plotter gives greater stationary stability for riding out non-laminar disturbances in the vortex…" Finally, in a desperate attempt to change the subject, the Doctor's eyes swept the room and alighted on an object the Master still held in one hand.

"What do you call _those_?" It was the pair of socks he had unearthed in the cupboard earlier, and even the Doctor had to admit they were revolting – knitted woollen stockings in garish green and red stripes adorned with large, lopsided snowflakes. "You're not _actually_ going to wear them, are you?" The Master eyed the socks with undisguised distaste, before flinging them into an open drawer.

"I'd rather wear that scarf you used to trip over."

"Well it's all there is," the Doctor shrugged nonchalantly. "Come on, then – we've got a few items to pick up." He made a move towards the door and the Master picked up his boots. There was the longest pause; the Doctor stood with his hand on the doorhandle, watching the Master almost expectantly, and eventually with a snort of disgust, the Master reached back into the drawer to retrieve the socks.

"Ugh – now I _know_ I've been stuck with you for too long."

Just before he turned the doorhandle, the Doctor rubbed the side of his head, where his hair still tingled with static from the brush of the Master's hand, and glanced at the other Time Lord out of the corner of his eye just in time to glimpse another pulse of life force energy glimmering through his skin.

"You know, whether you'll admit it or not, you're going to be in trouble if we don't get the TARDIS back soon," he said quietly. The Master narrowed his eyes and said nothing.

...

Later that night, if Craig had still been awake to hear, he might have wondered at the clattering of a shopping trolley that broke the stillness of the silent street. He might have heard the hushed voices of two Time Lords, one of whom was none too pleased about being appreciated for his experience living rough on the streets. He might even, if he had listened closely, have made out the contented purring of a cat held in the arms of the darker clad of the two, who walked beside the one with the trolley.

But in the pitch darkness of the small hours of the night, he could not have seen the lingering gaze that rested on the upper window of the house, or the faint twitching at the corner of the hooded figure's mouth as he followed the first up the steps and through the door.


	4. A Mixed Up Sign

The next morning dawned to the sizzle of sausages and hash browns and a delicious aroma that wafted down the corridor from the kitchen to the nose of Craig Owens, who stood outside the bathroom door. Mouth already watering, he knew not for the first time that he wouldn't regret taking the Doctor on as a lodger. However, as he shifted from foot to foot outside the door, he could hear over the running shower the voice of his second lodger quietly humming and singing to himself.

"_Disco dancin' with the lights down low-ohh_…"

"Kaiser?" Craig knocked hesitantly on the door. "How long are you going to be in there?"

"_Beats are pumpin' on the stereo-ohh_…"

"C'mon, mate." Struck by an idea, Craig raised his voice to be heard over the splashing and the perky pop song, and knocked again. "Breakfast's nearly ready."

"_Neighbours bangin' on the bathroom wa-a-all_…hm? What's that?"

"Breakfast," Craig repeated with another final knock. "Food – sausages, bacon, hash browns."

_That ought to do it_, he thought to himself, turning to head back to the kitchen. Suddenly, a series of dull thuds pounded from the ceiling, followed by a heavy crash that sounded like it might have been furniture toppling over.

"What the _hell_ was that?" he murmured, frowning upwards. Reluctantly, he bypassed the kitchen and peered up the stairs towards the closed door of the upstairs flat. "Hello?" he called cautiously. "Hello – are you O.K. up there?"

...

Alone at last…it was a small mercy, but a welcome one. The door was locked, the shower curtain was drawn around him and the Master stood in the water, feeling it wash over him like pouring rain. It irked him to admit it to himself, but the Doctor had been right – without the TARDIS, his energy was quickly breaking down, his life force becoming steadily more and more unstable. Closing his eyes, he was taken briefly back to the first night after his resurrection – it had rained that night; he remembered the icy water on his skin, but very little else – just a fragmented blur of light and darkness, numbness and pain, the silence of a stilled heartbeat and the pounding of the drums. A shudder shook him and he quickly opened his eyes, allowing the glaring white light of the bathroom to dispel the haze of memory that menaced him from the edges of his subconscious. Still, though, the perpetual drumbeat hammered in his ears, and the nagging hunger was returning, growing stronger by the hour, aching in the pit of his stomach.

A rush of dissipating energy coursed through him and he winced, fighting it down with gritted teeth. Shaking his head to clear his vision, he found that he had placed one hand flat against the smooth wall – and in a moment of weary relief, he allowed himself to rest his forehead against the cool tiles, wrapping his other arm around himself.

At the crash from overhead, his head snapped upright and his hands dropped to his sides, curling into tense fists. Craig's voice sounded distantly – at the end of the corridor, he estimated – followed shortly by the Doctor's voice. Now alert, the Master switched off the shower and stepped out, listening intently over the persistent rhythm of four.

"…I can do them sunny-side-up, if you'd prefer…" The Doctor again, still jabbering on. Rolling his eyes, the Master picked up a towel. "…and I've always quite liked them with mustard. How about you, Craig?"

"Hang on a tic – I'm just going to see if he's all right…" The Master had barely finished pulling on one of the lurid socks when he heard the distinct creak of a foot on a wooden stair. Seized with panic, he snatched up the towel and made a dive for the door.

"Don't go up there!" he bellowed, fumbling with the lock. "Don't touch it, Doctor – it's mi- oww!" His feet slid on the damp floor and he stumbled, catching his elbow painfully on the corner of the sink – and biting back a curse, he missed the sound of the front door swinging open. "Doctor – leave it alone!" Frantically, he flung open the bathroom door and hurtled down the corridor, clutching the towel. "Do you hear me? You will ob-" He skidded out into the hallway and stopped short, the sparks that had crackled to life in the hand not gripping the towel dying abruptly as three pairs of eyes turned to face him.

"Ah – Ma- …Kaiser!" the Doctor chirped, brandishing a spatula with an unruffled grin. "There you are! You'll be wanting breakfast, of course." Craig recovered first from his surprise and let out a somewhat embarrassed laugh.

"Bit keen, aren't you?"

The owner of the third pair of eyes was a young woman, who had averted her gaze and covered her face with her hands. Shyly, she peeked between her fingers, and Craig noticed with some disconcertion as her eyes travelled slowly down from Kaiser's face, past the towel, coming to rest on the single sock that the man appeared to have hastily pulled on – Craig was _sure_ he had seen that absurd pattern before.

All at once, Kaiser appeared to mentally shake himself; he drew the towel around his waist, securing it in place, and his eyes darted between the three of them. Briefly – although Craig later thought it could have been his imagination – something flashed in the man's eyes that sent an inexplicable chill down his neck, and then he was gone, sidestepping quickly back through the door. A few seconds later, the bathroom door could be heard slamming with what sounded like enough force to splinter the doorframe, and Craig turned back to Sophie.

"And…uh…and that was Kaiser – I told you about him, right?"

"Y-yeah…" Her cheeks were flushed pink; Craig couldn't help thinking what a lively glow the blush brought to her face, and the phone must have been on its second or third ring before the sound registered in his ears.

Miraculously, the Doctor hadn't burned one of the sausages in the frying pan, and he began expertly scooping them out onto plates – four plates, Sophie noticed as she deposited her armful of groceries on the kitchen side, but she certainly wasn't going to object.

"No – Don's in Malta – there's nobody around," Craig was saying on the phone, and Sophie rolled her eyes with a small smile – Craig and his football… He shuffled towards the Doctor and tried to catch the man's eye with a muttered "Hang on a sec," down the phone. "We've got a match today – pub league," he said, and the Doctor raised his eyes from the crispy-golden hash browns he was now drizzling with tomato sauce, a bottle in each hand. "We're one down, if you fancy it?"

"Pub league…" the Doctor said pensively. Flipping both bottles closed and spinning them deftly, his expression brightened with apparent comprehension. "A drinking competition!" Sophie giggled, quickly covering her mouth as Craig glanced at her over the Doctor's shoulder and covered the mouthpiece of the phone with one hand.

"No – football. Play football?"

"Football…" the Doctor murmured. "Ah! _Football_! Blokes…play football! I'm good at football…" In his relief, Sophie thought Craig might have missed the uncertain "…I think" that the Doctor added, as he clapped him on the back and the Doctor returned the gesture with a fraction of a hesitation.

"You've saved my life!" Craig exclaimed, and the Doctor beamed, returning to the plates and pans. "I've got somebody. Yeah, all right, see you down there…"

"_Again_, Doctor?" Apparently, the earlier incident had not been enough to deter Kaiser from joining them for breakfast, now clothed from head to toe in black with a hood drawn up over his head. "What did you do now – make a fibrillator out of a frying pan?" With his hood partially concealing his features, it wasn't hard for Sophie to avoid his eyes as he stalked past her, picked up a plate and grabbed a sausage.

"Nope," the Doctor replied happily, handing a plate each to Sophie and Craig, who seated themselves at the table. "We're going to play football." Kaiser had remained standing, and Sophie saw with some surprise that he had already half-cleared his plate. He raised his head, flipping back the hood to glower at the Doctor, incredulous.

"_What_?"

"Football," the Doctor repeated. "I think it's the one with the sticks."

"I know what _football_ is," Kaiser retorted, although he quickly lowered his eyes back to the plate. "'_We_?'"

"Yes – we're going to be normal blokes today."

"You're not expecting _me_ to-"

"No – it's O.K.," Craig spoke up, and Sophie found herself feeling a little relieved. "There's only one kit. Bottom drawer, by the way." This last to the Doctor, who flashed a quick thumbs-up, handed his plate to Kaiser and made for the door to their bedroom.

"Bit of a mess," he excused himself, slipping through and shutting the door at his back before Sophie and Craig could catch a glimpse past him. Kaiser was now setting into the Doctor's barely-touched breakfast as if it were his first meal of the week, and Sophie glanced anxiously at him and then at Craig, who squinted curiously at Kaiser.

"You all right, mate?" The hazel eyes were lifted questioningly to meet his, and held his gaze for the longest pause before Craig managed to find the rest of his sentence. "You look a bit…peaky this morning, that's all."

"Peaky." Kaiser's rough voice was flat and expressionless, eyes still fixed on Craig, almost expectantly.

"Well, it's just…you don't have to come to the football match if you don't want to," Craig shrugged. "I mean, you can, if you want to support the Doctor…Sophie's coming – she's my mascot – but…you know, if you don't feel up to it…no-one's expecting anyone else to bring a date."

"You said mascot," Sophie put in, her voice breaking the hold Kaiser's eyes seemed to have on Craig as though she had cut an elastic band.

"Mascot?" Craig blinked. "No – I meant da- no, I…yeah, mascot. I meant them – they're da-"

"Oh, don't worry." Kaiser placed the empty plate on the side and strode towards the bedroom door. "If I feel 'peaky'…" he turned his strangely penetrating gaze on Sophie, "…I'll borrow your spare key." And with that, he slipped through the door and was gone, leaving Craig and Sophie to once again exchange uncomfortable glances.

"How…how did he know I have two keys?"

...

The small bedroom was more cramped than ever – the Doctor hadn't been exaggerating when he said it was a "bit of a mess", the Master thought as he picked his way carefully across to the bed. The Doctor, now dressed in a pair of black shorts and a baggy blue T-shirt emblazoned with a large number eleven on the back, was edging his way around the room, poking at his hair with a brush in one hand and adjusting the volume control of his earpiece with the other.

"So," he was saying to Amy. "We're going out. Can't hang about the house all day – him upstairs," he nodded upwards, "might get suspicious." Folding his hands behind his head, the Master lay back and closed his eyes. He remained like that for several seconds, fidgeting, crossing and uncrossing his feet, before grimacing and sitting up. With a disgusted glare at the Doctor, he began moving about the room collecting up the various items cluttering the floor and replacing them carefully in the trolley that he pushed back into a corner.

"Football," Amy replied in the Doctor's ear. "O.K., well done, that _is_ normal."

"Yeah. Football." The Doctor tossed the brush back in the direction of the dresser; it missed by a good half a foot, but the Doctor ignored it, along with the withering look the Master shot at his back. "All…outdoorsy and…stuff."

"Doctor?"

"Yes, Amy?"

"You have no idea what football is, do you?"

"Ah…" It was as close to a confession as she was going to get, and the Doctor heard her seat herself – was she putting her feet on the TARDIS console?

"What about Mister Rugby Blue Harold Saxon?" The Doctor raised his eyebrows in surprise and he turned to the Master, now straightening the tools scattered on the dresser.

"You never told me you played-"

"I was _joking_," Amy interrupted. "Neither of you know the first thing about Earth sports, do you?"

"I'll have you know I was quite good at cricket in my day!" the Doctor grumbled. "Right then, Pond. Football. Talk me through it. How do you hold the racket?"


	5. Like a Duck to Football

They made rather a disjointed ensemble, Craig thought, the four of them walking through the park together. The Doctor, who for some unimaginable reason had decided to wear his tweed jacket over the top of the football gear, strolled between Craig and Sophie rather than beside his own date (supporter, _supporter_) – while Kaiser, hood once again raised and hands shoved in the pockets of his hoodie, was slouching along a few paces away on the other side of Sophie. Being obliged to talk to the Doctor, Craig had thought, might have been an excuse to try and wheedle out some more information about the pair of them – how long were they staying? Where had they come from? Did they have jobs? But the Doctor remained as casually evasive as ever, and Kaiser remained silent.

"What are you _actually_ called?" Craig demanded. "What's your proper name?"

"Just call me the Doctor," the Doctor replied reasonably, as if it answered everything.

"I can't go up to these guys and go 'hey, this is my new flatmate, he's called "the Doctor"'."

"Yeah," Sophie agreed.

"Why not?" It was impossible to tell whether the Doctor was genuinely confused.

"'Cause it's…weird," Craig protested. There was a snort of laughter from behind Sophie – the first sound Kaiser had made since they had left the house – but the Doctor grinned amicably at him.

"I can think of a lot worse."

A shout from up ahead cut the conversation short and the group were suddenly surrounded by men in shorts and football T-shirts, slapping Craig high-fives and waving jovial greetings to Sophie. One, a tall man with close-cropped hair, reached to shake the Doctor's hand and was surprised to receive an air-kiss to each cheek.

"Hello! I'm Craig's new flatmate – I'm called the Doctor." Craig wasn't quite sure whether to be relieved that the Doctor had introduced himself, but quickly stepped forward to finish the introductions.

"Doctor, this is Sean. And _this_ shady character," he clapped Kaiser good-naturedly on the back, "is Kaiser Stream – he's the other flatmate."

"Good t'meet you – we can use all the support we can get," said Sean, and Kaiser and the Doctor both found themselves receiving several more slaps on the shoulder from Craig's team-mates as they passed. "So, Doctor – where you strongest?"

"Arms," the Doctor answered matter-of-factly, and Sean blinked, glancing briefly at Craig.

_Foreign, right_, Craig reminded himself, stepping in with a lowered voice.

"No – he means what position. On the field."

"Not sure," said the Doctor; Craig was having a harder and harder time convincing himself that his flatmate was, in fact, joking. "The front? The side? Below?"

"You any good, though?" Sean appeared doubtful, and Craig could hardly blame him, but in a smooth movement that Craig had been trying to perfect in his bedroom for years, the Doctor spun the ball on the end of one finger and began to move towards the field.

"Let's find out…"

Sophie had long lost track of when she'd stopped trying to convince herself she wasn't interested in football. Really, she hardly knew any of the rules even now, and she couldn't have recalled the scores for much more than a few hours past the game – and yet somehow, it had become just as much a part of her life as the call centre, as Melina and her crises, as Craig and his flat. She wouldn't have changed it for the world, these Sunday mornings standing under the trees, blowing the cold from her fingertips and feeling her heart humming just a little whenever she saw silly old Craig in his baggy shorts and battered football boots.

Not this morning, though. This morning, she was finding her attention increasingly drawn away from Craig. If the Doctor had never played football before, then he had taken to it like a duck to water. Tackling without hesitation, he had possession of the ball more often than not, and weaved in and out of the opposing team to score a goal within the first five minutes, with a strike that would have made a professional proud. Caught up in the amazed delight of the team, she whooped and applauded, chanting his name as he – almost literally – ran circles around the other players. Trailing behind him, calling out for a pass, a clumsier figure made a rather inelegant attempt at defending the Doctor, but- wait – that had been _Craig_, and he was now falling behind and watching forlornly as the Doctor scored once again.

"You were brilliant," she called out to Craig, flashing a thumbs-up. "You're amazing." She couldn't help her eyes moving quickly back to the Doctor, though – until a shadow entered the corner of her vision: the hooded figure of Kaiser, stepping up beside her with his head still lowered so that his face was barely visible.

"He's pretty good," she said, raising her hands to applaud a swift tackle that knocked the ball almost straight into the opposing goal.

"Who, Craig?"

"No – the Doc- …well, yeah, Craig's good, but…" Sophie trailed off, suddenly uncomfortable as she stole a glance at Kaiser's face and caught sight of what might have been a flicker of a smile. She swallowed hard and turned back to the field, raising her voice in encouragement. "Show 'em what you've got, Craig!" She hadn't been alone in being impressed by the Doctor, it seemed – half the other spectators were now chanting his name, she noticed, "Doctor, Doctor," over and over like some frenzied mantra, and there was Craig barely more than a ball-boy now for the Doctor. Guilt began to creep over her, and she rounded on Kaiser, possibly in an attempt to distract herself from the game. "So go on then – what's his real name?" An almost imperceptible shake of the head and what could have been a faint snort of laughter, but Kaiser made no reply for some time. Then, he raised his head and turned to face Sophie.

"Would you like to know _my_ real name, Sophie?"

"Go on, then," she laughed, and it didn't strike her until the words had emerged that his tone was perfectly level, dead serious.

"I," he said calmly, meeting her eyes, "am the Master." Sophie no longer felt the desire to laugh – in fact, the words didn't even sound absurd – they made complete logical sense. He had moved closer, eye-to-eye with her as he held her gaze. In her mind's eye, she could see her first impression of him that morning – bursting out into the hall with that dishevelled, almost panicked look to him and nothing but a towel and a single sock to cover himself – but somehow, that memory now seemed irrelevant. It _couldn't_ have been this man in front of her, this self-possessed, authoritative, _trustworthy_ man with those mesmerizing eyes…

Out on the field, Craig noticed immediately when Sophie's reliable shouts of encouragement ceased – and then again when they even stopped ringing out for the Doctor. He scanned the sidelines, hoping to catch her eye even for a moment – and felt a stab of irritation when he spotted her, apparently deep in conversation with Kaiser, who was standing _far_ too close to her. That was going too far… As the Doctor came bounding past, ball in hand, ready to take yet another penalty kick, Craig shouted out before he could stop himself.

"Hey Doctor – that your boyfriend skulking around with Sophie over there?"

Captivating and enticing, the Master's voice wormed its way into Sophie's brain, tunnelling around, chewing through her every thought, searching…

"Now, Sophie," he said softly. "I want you to tell me everything you know about the upstai-" Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a shape – a blur of black and white – slammed into the side of his head, knocking him to the ground, and Sophie briefly felt a stomach-churning falling sensation, as though she were suspended from a rope that had been cut. Before she could register it, it was gone, and she was blinking in the sunlight and the sound of a disappointed roar of spectators filled her ringing ears. Her eyes widened at the sight of the Ma- …_Kaiser_ on the grass before her, a football rolling away from him.

"Oh my God – are you all right?" she gasped, kneeling hastily beside him and supporting him as he tried to push himself up into a sitting position. There was a blast on the referee's whistle and several players came jogging over.

"You 'K, man?" Sean asked, bending over them. "That was quite a wallop you took. Blimey – never even seen Craig miss a penalty shot by that much before!" Sophie glanced up anxiously to see Craig's shoulders visibly sagging, his crestfallen expression like a kicked puppy. Before she could catch his eye, he had looked away and she turned back to Kaiser, who was blinking dazedly up at Sean. "How you feelin'?"

"Mmmpeaky…" Kaiser mumbled.

"Hey, Doctor," came Craig's voice. "Maybe you should take Kaiser home – he might have concussion or something. Go on – we can play without you."

"Let's have a look at him," the Doctor called, nudging his way through the players. "Excuse me – I'm a doctor…" He crouched down beside the two and lifted Kaiser's wrist, feeling for a pulse; Kaiser nearly lost his balance and Sophie put an arm across his thin shoulders. With a few clicks of his tongue and thoughtful hums, the Doctor peered into Kaiser's slightly unfocused eyes, felt his forehead and prodded the side of his head.

"Oww…"

"Nope, he's fine," the Doctor announced. "Just needs to sit still for fifteen minutes or so – might as well finish the game. Put your head between your knees," he added. Apparently satisfied, he stood up, and this must have been good enough for the rest of the team as they headed back to the field with barely a backwards glance. A minute later, the referee's piercing whistle shrilled out and Kaiser winced, raising a hand to his head. He looked vaguely green, and Sophie rubbed his back soothingly.

_Honestly_, she thought crossly. _Men and their football_!

...

The day was brightening, the sky a clear cerulean with barely a cloud in sight by late morning. Walking briskly home from the supermarket, handbag over her shoulder, one lone woman was wondering if perhaps spring was on its way at last; her overcoat and cardigan were just that little bit too warm. She knew she should have made the most of the winter to seize the excuse to get away. Then again, she supposed it was never too late – the Mediterranean, perhaps, or Florida – they would be lovely this time of the year…

Thoughts drifting across golden beaches and sapphire seas, the last thing she expected to hear was the high-pitched voice of a child from the direction of an otherwise silent house.

"Please can you help me? Can you help me? Please?" The woman stopped and squinted at the door – the voice seemed to be coming from a speaker just beside the doorbell, and it had a vaguely tinny quality to it. "Can you help me?" She moved closer, but the door remained closed and there was no sign of movement from any of the windows.

"Hello?" she called. As she reached the red-painted door, there was a click; when she pushed, it creaked open easily and she stepped through into a darkened hallway with a steep flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs, silhouetted against a dim glow from an ajar door, a little girl stood with one hand on the banister.

"I've lost my mum and I don't know where she is," the voice continued. "Please can you help me?"

"Help you?" The woman stepped forward quickly, concern gripping her. "You poor thing – what's happened?"

"Can you help me find her?" The little girl turned and headed through the door at her back, and the woman followed without hesitation. Behind her, the door swung slowly shut.

...

The whole team was buzzing by the end of the match, slapping the Doctor on the back and ruffling his hair, waving tauntingly to the other team who slunk off the pitch, thoroughly defeated.

"You are _so_ on the team!" Sean exclaimed, grabbing a plastic bag from beside his gear and tossing out cans of beer to his team-mates. Kaiser, still wobbly on his feet, had been helped to the park bench by Sophie and now sat beside her, looking if possible just about as sorry for himself as the captain of the opposing team. The only person quieter than him was Craig, who caught a beer rather half-heartedly and looked around for Sophie. Even now as they gathered around the bench and began fishing out snacks from their kit bags, the team, it seemed, couldn't stop enthusing about their new dark horse.

"Next week, we've got the Crown an' Anchor," Sean was still raving. "We're gonna _annihilate_ them!"

"Let's decimate them…" Kaiser grinned weakly, his eyes flickering towards the Doctor with a glint of malice.

"I like your thinkin', man!" Sean went to clap Kaiser enthusiastically on the back, but caught himself and settled for a pat on the shoulder instead. "Eh Doctor – just make sure you take out the other team's support next time, 'stead of your own!"

"So sorry," said the Doctor, although Sophie privately thought he didn't look it. "Tried for a curveball, but the wind was…blowing. Got anything to eat?"

"Yeah – got a few packets o' crisps over here somewhere – an' Sophie usually brings them doughnuts-

"-Sophie usually brings them-

"-Sophie usually-

"-Soph-

"-Soph-"

Caught unawares this time when the localized time loop hit, the Doctor jumped back and sent an urgent look towards the Master. The other Time Lord had evidently felt the lurching of the timeline, as he had put his head back between his knees, so the Doctor reached for his earpiece.

"Amy? What's happening at your end?" It took a few moments – or rather, looped not-moments – for the human girl to answer, and when she did, the Doctor was relieved to hear that she, at least, didn't sound too worried.

"Doctor! How'd the big game go?"

"Is it happening again?" He was shifting from foot to foot with nervousness, and a slap at his hand told him that he had begun absent-mindedly patting the Master on the back.

"Ooh, changing the subject, are we? Not so good, I take it…"

"Amy, just tell me what the scanner says." The Doctor was unable to keep the urgency from his voice, but Amy seemed to take an infuriatingly long time to reply – he could hear her heels on the TARDIS deck strolling around the edge of the console.

"Mmm…mostly nines. Ni-"

"Mostly? What are the other numbers?"

"All right, all right, keep your bow tie on… Nine, nine, eight, seven, eight, nine. Happy?"

"Yeah…yeah…" Awash with relief, the Doctor leaned against the back of the park bench and exhaled slowly. "Just keep that sawtooth plotter on like the Master told you." Beside him, the Master had straightened up and was eyeing and was watching Sophie, who sat on his other side on the bench, still looping back and forth on the unsettling time eddy. He pushed himself to his feet and began walking slightly unsteadily away from the group, and the Doctor followed.

"What's he up to, then?" Amy asked.

"Oh, he's fine. Minor concussion – nothing too serious…"

"Minor concussion? What have you two been doing to each oth- ah!" Cut off by an alarming groan from the TARDIS, Amy cried out and for one hearts-stopping moment, the line went dead.

"Amy?" The Doctor stopped short and tapped urgently on the earpiece, while the Master raised his eyebrows and tilted his head questioningly. "_Amy_?"

"Whew…" Amy's shaky sigh crackled through just as they felt the flow of time settle. "Bit of a bump there…"

"Oh _dear_!" Folding his arms, the Master elevated his voice. "Has she been flung out into the time vortex, Doctor?"

"What?" Amy's voice also rose, in pitch as well as volume. "What did he say? Doctor?"

"Nothing," the Doctor reassured her hurriedly. "Nothing – you're fine, Amy. Everything's going to be just fine."

"He said something about-"

"Minor concussion, I told you. We," he gripped the grinning Time Lord by the elbow and began steering him in the direction of the flat, "have some rewiring to do…"

...

It was mid-afternoon by the time Craig found a chance to knock on his flatmates' door. From inside, he could hear lowered voices; footsteps approached and the door swung open just wide enough to admit the head and shoulders of the Doctor.

"Hello, flatmate!"

"Uh…hey, man," Craig replied hesitantly. "Look – uh, Sophie's coming round tonight, and…I wondered if you two could…uh…you know, give us some space?"

"Oh, don't mind us," the Doctor breezed. "You won't even know we're here." A rumbling crash from overhead distracted Craig for a moment and he glanced upwards; when he turned back to the door, it had been closed in his face and he could hear Kaiser's voice instructing the Doctor.

"…then it'll need a carbon-based core – buckminsterfullerene, ideally, or get me some refined lignin, or…"

"How about a broom handle?"


	6. Free Fourth

Craig was mildly surprised when the first thing Sophie noticed as she set down her handbag on the coffee table was the dark patch in the corner of the ceiling.

"That's got bigger," she observed, leaning back into the soft leather beside Craig.

"Oh yeah…" The dry rot couldn't have been further from Craig's mind.

"We going out?"

"I've had a bit of a weird day," Craig sighed. "Could we do pizza-booze-telly?"

"Love it," Sophie smiled. "Wait…" She reached for her handbag, pulling out her cellphone. "No Melina, no crises, no interruptions."

"Great." Craig's heart gave a little flip as she sent him a gentle smile, and suddenly meeting her eyes became the hardest thing in the world. "Excellent. Um…" He swallowed hard to quell the butterflies that had begun to stir in his stomach and turned himself to face her. "Soph? I've…" Somewhere between his heart and his mouth, the words got lost; he tried again. "I think…"

"Where's this going?" Expectation was shining in Sophie's clear eyes; the butterflies in Craig's stomach were now dancing right up through his chest and fluttering in the back of his throat.

"I think that we…" he managed. "…should…"

The sound of the door slamming behind him was like a deadweight had been dropped on Craig – it crushed the butterflies and sank heavily in his chest, leaving his heart thudding painfully when they both jumped. He hadn't realized how close they had moved until he was suddenly aware that Sophie had pulled back. Almost noiseless footsteps were broken by the occasional uncoordinated shuffle betraying the movement of Kaiser crossing the kitchen; moments later, he sauntered into view and seated himself in the armchair on the other side of Sophie with barely a glance at the two of them. When Craig found his voice, it was bristling with indignation.

"Uh…I thought you two were going out or something?"

"Can't speak for the Doctor, but _I'm_ watching telly," Kaiser replied. "That's _normal_, isn't it?" Somehow, the icy edge to his voice had Craig feeling that there was something decidedly abnormal about it, but Kaiser was already searching down the sides of the armchair for the remote control.

"There's nothing on," he tried. "It's Sunday night – it's all…cartoons and stuff."

"I'm sure I can find something," said Kaiser coolly. "I've reconnected all the electrics – didn't the Doctor tell you?"

"You've…what?" Craig spluttered. "Look – Kaiser, mate – we're kind of…" He leaned around to try and catch the man's eye, his own eyes shifting emphatically towards Sophie, but the white-haired head was turned pointedly away, whether ignoring him deliberately or genuinely oblivious, Craig couldn't be sure.

"No, it's O.K.," Sophie spoke up, to Craig's dismay. "I don't mind – if you don't mind, that is, Craig?"

"No…no, why would I mind?" He could think of several reasons, but held back from voicing them, instead hoping against hope that his flatmate would realize that three had never felt so crowded and excuse himself.

"Yeah, stay," Sophie offered. "Have a drink with us." Kaiser glanced at her with a brief shrug, before turning back to the TV screen, seemingly focused intensely on a brightly-coloured Japanese cartoon.

And so, Craig found himself sharing his evening – and Sophie's attention – with his flatmates. The Doctor had entered some five minutes or so after Kaiser and appeared delighted at the idea of joining the little gathering. He had sat down on a dining room chair pulled up at the back of Kaiser's armchair without invitation, but Craig no longer cared – as far as he was concerned, the evening was long dead. The bottle of wine had been opened and shared between the four of them – good wine, _expensive_ wine, wine that he had bought specially when Sophie mentioned some weeks ago having it at a friend's house. Kaiser had finished his glass and swapped it for the Doctor's still-full one; the Doctor, for his part, hadn't even noticed, deep in conversation with Sophie while Craig twiddled his thumbs and watched the cartoon on the screen with open disinterest.

"'Cause life can seem pointless, you know, Doctor? Work, weekend, work, weekend – and there's six billion people on the planet doing pretty much the same."

"Six billion peo-"

"Sh!" Kaiser nudged the Doctor with his elbow and reached for the remote control to turn up the volume, but the Doctor continued to talk.

"So then, call centre – that's no good? What do you _really_ want to do?"

"Don't laugh," said Sophie with a glance back at Craig, who quickly plastered a smile across his face. "I only ever tell Craig about it. I…I want to work looking after animals, maybe abroad? I saw this orang-utan sanctuary on telly…" Her eyes had lit up as she spoke, and the Doctor must have noticed as he asked bluntly,

"What's stopping you?"

"She can't," Craig explained quickly. "You need loads of…qualifications."

"Yeah, true…" Sophie nodded her agreement. "Plus – it's…scary. Everyone I know lives round here. Like, Craig – got offered a job in London, better money, didn't take it."

"What's wrong with staying here?" Craig protested.

"Ah yes – not much of a traveller," the Doctor remembered. "Never been abroad, Craig? France? Spain?"

"Nah – can't see the point of Spain," Craig shrugged.

"Nor could I," Kaiser's voice muttered distinctly. All of a sudden, Craig felt inexplicably solemn.

"Shipyard number 58, wasn't it?" he said, and all three looked at him with varying shades of confusion.

"Hm?" Sophie and the Doctor didn't seem too sure whether they'd heard correctly; Kaiser studied Craig's face for a second and then averted his eyes.

"Oh – nothing…" Craig could feel his ears reddening with embarrassment – where had that thought come from? Perhaps it was a movie he had seen, or a dream, or…no, he couldn't place it. "Anyway, Soph – yeah, I mean, you wouldn't know anyone, wouldn't know where to go…"

"Well, perhaps that's you, then?" the Doctor suggested, his interest in Sophie apparently lost as his attention seemed to drift to the TV. "Perhaps you'll just have to stay here secure and a little bit miserable 'til the day you drop. Better than trying and failing, eh?" Craig wasn't the only one surprised by the Doctor's suddenly harsh attitude – Kaiser also dragged his eyes from the TV, although his expression now showed the faintest hint of a smile and he nodded as though pleased.

"You think I'd fail?" Sophie sounded slightly perturbed.

"Well, everybody's got dreams, Sophie. Very few are going to achieve them, so why pretend?" The Doctor reached under his chair and fished out the empty wine glass. He sniffed it, wrinkled his nose and replaced it by his feet. "Perhaps in the whole wide universe, a call centre is about where you should be."

"Why are you saying that?" Sophie exclaimed, shocked. "That's horrible!"

"Ah, but is it true?" Kaiser cut in. Craig leaned forward, on the point of coming to Sophie's irate defence, when she retorted herself,

"Of course it's not true! I'm not staying in a call centre all my life – I can do anything I want!" The Doctor's eyes finally returned to Sophie, and a warmth had returned to them as his face spread into a smile, looking between her and Kaiser. As realization dawned on Sophie, her mouth fell open in an O of amazement.

"Ohh…yeah, right!" Delighted, she turned to Craig. "Oh my God – did you see what he just did?"

"No, sorry…what's happening?" Craig had to do a double-take – he was sure he must have missed a turning point somewhere along the way, and he had an unpleasant feeling that something was changing. "Are you going to live with monkeys now?"

Unnoticed by the pair, the Master's astonishment at Sophie's revelation had instead darkened into anger, incensed all the more when the Doctor leaned forward and said quietly,

"You see? There's more than one way to manipulate people." Rather than give the Doctor the satisfaction of any response, the Master picked up the wine bottle from the table and made to refill his empty glass, but to his irritation, the Doctor's hand reached forward and plucked the bottle from his grasp. "It won't help, you know," he said. "Empty calories."

"Oh, it helps," the Master growled, snatching it back and emptying the contents into his glass.

"You really should be careful," the Doctor warned in a low voice. "That knock you got today – and you're in no state to be-"

"Don't _patronize_ me," the Master spat, loudly enough so that Craig and Sophie couldn't help but hear. "Always criticizing my lifestyle choices, aren't you, Doctor?"

"I'd hardly call it a lifest-"

"_Choices_, then." More as a gesture than because he was enjoying the taste of the drink, the Master drained the glass in his hand and set the glass down roughly on the table. "Because that's the one thing I don't have any more – the last thing you took away from me. Interfering with _my_ plans wasn't enough for you – you had to make sure I was following _your_…your sightseeing, your traipsing around from one mess to the next."

"I…" Taken aback, the Doctor was for once lost for words. "I thought you were…"

"Happy?" the Master sneered.

"Well, content, at least…"

Behind them, Sophie and Craig were exchanging uncomfortable glances. As the voices of the two escalated, it became impossible not to feel as though they were intruding, and Craig jerked his head towards the door.

"Pub?" he mouthed, and Sophie nodded, looking relieved. As surreptitiously as they could manage, they stood and headed for the door.

"Oh, _content_," the Master snorted. "Content to be your…what am I? Your companion? Your passenger? Your _patient_?"

"We used to be fr-"

"Don't."

Neither noticed as the door clicked shut; the bitterness in the Master's voice was cutting into the Doctor's hearts, twisting the knife in his conscience that had already been driven deep by the extinction of the Saturnyne and forced home by Rory's death. Rory had tried to warn him, he realized with a pang. Quiet, unassuming Rory Williams had seen what he could not – what he hadn't wanted to know – that the Master was far from happy, was frustrated and humiliated by his dependence on the Doctor's TARDIS.

_"Oh yes, I've got everything I want…except, of course, my freedom…"_

A distant recollection passed through the Doctor's mind, and he suddenly understood – his lifelong adversary felt himself no better off than a prisoner.

"I'm…I'm sorry." His voice felt choked – and even if it hadn't, he hardly knew what to say. "I thought it was the best thing – me and you…and Amy-"

"Ugh – yes, you _still_ had to get yourself another Earth girl pet. I know you had your reasons for picking up this one, but _really_…'Doctor, I want to see planets,'" the Master mimicked, raising his voice in a crude impression of Amy's Scottish twang. "'Doctor, you promised me Rio. Doctor, I broke a nail on a Weeping Angel…'" He drew a breath, his voice trembling slightly – whether with anger, the Doctor couldn't be sure. "'Doctor, Mister Saxon is crazy, isn't he? He's mad, he's a nut job…'"

"She didn't mean-"

"Of course she meant it – what do you take me for?" Voice hoarse, the Master hunched forwards, fists pressed against the sides of his head. "You've said the same thing yourself, so many times – 'you're completely insane…'" He was silent for a moment, and then rose and turned to meet the Doctor's eyes, his own eyes wavering almost imperceptibly. "When will it stop, Doctor?" He lowered his head and, without another word, strode past the Doctor and out into the hallway, slamming the door at his back and leaving the Doctor to bow his head and bury his hands in his hair.

An unseen pair of eyes was following the Master's back as he hastened down the corridor. From the silhouette that stood at the top of the stairs, a cool female voice raised itself after him.

"Don't you want to come with me?" she called. "We would make quite the team – minds like ours, we could be unstoppable. Come with me." There was a barely visible tensing in the Time Lord's shoulders, but without breaking his stride, he lifted his hand in a gesture that would have been considered deplorable in at least six galaxies. The woman at the top of the stairs showed no reaction, and by the time the bathroom door was closed firmly behind the Master, she was gone.

...

For what could have been a matter of minutes but felt like an interminable stretch, the Doctor sat on the edge of what remained of the bed frame and followed the slow revolving of the structure in the centre of the room with his eyes. Cobbled together from all manner of odds and ends, as well as components of most of the furniture that had been in the room, it was nonetheless symmetrical and balanced, and turned steadily and smoothly. Scattered on the floor around the Doctor's feet were sheets of paper covered in diagrams and labels in the Master's neat handwriting, meticulously planned down to the last detail, with the odd note in flowing Gallifreyan script to illustrate more complex concepts that would have taken pages to explain in English. Garden tools, bedside lamps, bicycle parts and even a washing line purloined – borrowed – from a neighbour's garden had been assembled into a surprisingly stable pyramidal structure that started off without a hitch and moved soundlessly as it picked up information and fed it through to a row of digital alarm clocks lined up on a shelf by the door – all with the efficiency and skill that the Doctor would expect from a man who even with a human brain had once built a rocket practically out of staples and string.

Had he been bored, the Doctor wondered? With their own relationship no longer a battle of wits and deduction, what was there to challenge the Master's active, restless mind? What could there possibly be for an intelligence like his in travelling with the Doctor if he hadn't been forced to for the sake of his very survival? Perhaps it truly was little more than sightseeing for him, and the Doctor knew as well as any how quickly sightseeing could become meaningless and monotonous.

Or perhaps he was making excuses for his own oversights. Caught up in the thrill of the new body, new start, new human companion to show the stars, perhaps the Doctor had overlooked the one who still needed his help more than ever, had neglected to see that tethered to his TARDIS was a proud, fiercely independent Time Lord who still burned with resentment for what had been done to him so many centuries ago.

Eventually, standing and shrugging off his jacket with a heavy sigh, the Doctor switched on his earpiece.

"Amy?"

"Still here," Amy answered promptly. She gave a loud and obvious yawn. "Not like I'm going anywhere, am I?"

"I'm doing the best I can, Pond," the Doctor snapped. "In case you haven't noticed, this isn't my fault." There was silence, and the Doctor felt another twinge of guilt. "Sorry, Amy," he apologized. "It won't be long now – I'll get you out of there."

"You two have had another row, haven't you?"

"A row?" Edging around the room, the Doctor dodged a corner of the whirling machine that narrowly missed his kneecaps. "We've been sworn arch-enemies for hundreds of years, Pond – I hardly think a 'row' is worth mentioning, in the grand scheme of things…" Amy's silence spoke for her scepticism, but the Doctor was busying himself with switching on the row of alarm clocks and pretended not to notice, until she was finally forced to break the pause.

"So, what about that scanner you were building? Got any readings?"

"Well, the atmospheric pressure seems normal…" He picked up one of the alarm clocks and shook it, watching the numbers jump up and down and then stabilize. "Gravity's a bit high, perhaps, but that could just be the centripetal force from the dustbin lid. And the temporal flow is fine. Completely normal – for now, at least."

"What, so…nothing?"

"Nothing that I can see from this data," the Doctor murmured, picking up several loose ends that had been sellotaped to the underside of the shelf. "I wonder what the Master was doing with these…"

"Look, why don't you just go upstairs and have a look?" said Amy impatiently. "Forget the 'normal blokes' thing – just sonic the door and get out of there before you and Mister Saxon kill each other."

"Because whatever it is, it's incredibly powerful, and therefore probably incredibly dangerous," the Doctor answered calmly. "And the only thing more stupid than breaking in there by myself would be breaking in there and relying on the Master to back me up. One of us could get ourselves killed, and if it's me, you really _are_ likely to get flung out into the time vortex."

"Flung out into the… Is _that_ what he said earlier?"

"No! No, no, of course not," the Doctor backtracked hastily. "Now, I just need to see…I wonder…" He trailed off and his tone became pensive. "I wonder… Amy, use the databank on the TARDIS. Get me the plans, layout, history, everything…of this building."

"Right."

"And I am going to…hm. I wonder where that cat's got to…"

...

When Craig returned to the house later that night, he was more than a little relieved to find that the lights were out and there was no sign of his two flatmates. He locked and bolted the door behind himself, and then paused in the hallway, allowing his thoughts to drift back. The pub had been crowded and noisy – they had ended up sharing a table and a few pints with several of the football team and their partners – but Craig had still heard enough from Sophie to fill his mind.

_"So what's keeping you here, Soph?"_

_"I…I don't know…"_

What if there was nothing for Sophie here? If there was nothing for Sophie, then what was he? If she left, what would he be? He simply couldn't picture a future without her any more, not now that he knew what he had set his heart on. But if her heart was far off in some distant tropical jungle, how could he ever reach it? Had she slipped from his grasp for good?

Sophie had noticed his glum distance that evening, but he knew he could never voice the anxiety weighing on him when he couldn't even put words to the questions that tugged at him.

Squinting in the darkness, he felt his way along the corridor and pushed open the door to the living room. A streetlamp outside sent a few stray beams of orange light through the window, enough for him to find his way across to the side-table by the armchair, where he was _sure_ there had been a lamp…no – there it was, over in the corner, between the bookcase and a dining chair. One of his flatmates must have been reading, he supposed. He flicked it on and immediately noticed something _off_ about the shadow it cast up the wall. The warm light didn't quite reach the ceiling, and he realized after a moment that the dark patch he was peering at was the same dark patch that had caught Sophie's eye that evening. Now that he thought about it, it _did_ seem to have spread further out across the ceiling than he remembered.

"You should really have a look at that." The soft voice from the corner of the kitchen sent Craig's heart leaping into his mouth and he spun around. Kaiser's slight, black-clad figure was practically invisible in the semi-darkness, although Craig could make out his white hair, dripping wet and plastered to his forehead, and a gleam of eyes in his pale face. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Craig saw that in his arms, the man was holding a long-haired cat close to his chest.

"Blimey, Kaiser!" Craig spluttered, once he had recovered from the shock. "You nearly gave me a heart attack! Did you…uh…are you after the spare bed?" Kaiser smiled slowly, and Craig gave a short, nervous laugh.

"Oh, no. No – I was just looking at that." His eyes flickered upwards towards the dark patch above Craig's head. "I think it's dry rot – what do you think? Would you have a quick look for me?"

"What, now?" Craig raised his wrist to try and make out the hands on his watch. "It's past midnight – can't it wait 'til tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow?" Kaiser shook his head. "The 'Rotdoktor' will be hanging around tomorrow, all football and _omelette du fromage_ – you'll forget all about it." Craig couldn't help but feel a guilty prickle of pleasure at the derision in Kaiser's voice when he mentioned the Doctor, and with a shrug, he put one foot on the dining chair that was already against the wall below the dark patch.

"You're not getting me involved in your little domestic," he chuckled, raising his hand towards the patch. "If this is about- ow!" The moment his fingers brushed the wall, a sharp, numbing jolt ran up his arm, tingling right to his very bones as though he had touched an electric fence. "Hey, what are you playing at?" He whirled angrily, but Kaiser had vanished, as silently as if he had melted into the shadows, leaving Craig feeling more than a little unsettled.


	7. Blue Monday

The Doctor was puzzled when Craig hadn't appeared in the kitchen by the time he had finished cooking breakfast – Monday _was_ a work day nowadays, wasn't it? There was no sign of the Master either, although the Doctor could still sense his presence within the house – out in the hallway, by the feel of it. But there had been not a sound from Craig's room. Concern brushed at him for a moment, but he pushed it aside – perhaps it was normal for a lodger to take his landlord breakfast on Mondays. He gathered the plates, a mug of tea and a glass of juice onto a tray and made his way down the corridor towards Craig's room.

"Craig?" he called through the door, knocking with his foot. "Breakfast. It's normal… Craig?" Nothing – no response, not even a stirring of bedsheets. The concern returned in full force, and he shouldered the door open and stepped through into a darkened bedroom. His hearts grew cold at what he saw – Craig lay unmoving and deathly pale in the bed, lips slightly parted and eyelids slipped half-shut. "Craig…" Abandoning all care with the food, the Doctor shoved the tray at the foot of the bed and grabbed for Craig's limp wrist. Sure enough, tracing a pattern of olive green up the veins of his arm, was the telltale sign of a poison working its way through the human's body. "Craig, why? Why did you _have_ to go and touch it? An obviously poisonous unknown substance, and you just _had_ to go and stick your hand in it." He pushed Craig onto his back and raised both hands above his head, fists pressed together. "Come on, Craig – _breathe_!" With a strength born of desperation, he brought his fists down and slammed them onto Craig's chest; the man's eyes shot open and a choking gasp forced itself from his throat. "Come on, Craig, breathe!" he urged him. "Them's a healthy footballer's lungs…" A clink of the mug against the plates at the foot of the bed sparked a sudden brainwave, and the Doctor leaped to his feet and hurtled back down the corridor to the kitchen. "Right…reverse the enzyme decay," he muttered, snatching up the teapot from the table and emptying the entire box of teabags from the cupboard into it. "Excite the tannin molecules…" The rubbish bin caught his eye; he scooped out a handful of cold tea leaves from the top and began frantically grinding the whole mixture into a pulp with the end of a wooden spoon, adding boiling water from the kettle with the other hand.

The concentrate was ready not a moment too soon, and before long, Craig's laboured breathing was steadying and he was blinking blearily at the Doctor, who poured the tea bit by bit into his mouth from the spout of the teapot.

"I've got to go to work," Craig croaked feebly.

"On no account. You need rest," said the Doctor gently but firmly, lifting the teapot once again to Craig's lips. "One more…"

"This…this planning meeting…it's important," he tried to protest.

"You're important," the Doctor insisted, reaching out and smoothing Craig's hair back from his feverish brow. "Shh… You're going to be fine, Craig…" Almost before the door had closed behind the Doctor, Craig's eyes had slipped shut and the warm, healing blanket of sleep spread over him.

Back in the kitchen, the Doctor replaced the teapot on the side and shook his head. That had been a close call – too close. The sooner they sorted out whatever was in the upstairs flat, the better. He tried the door to his bedroom, but to his surprise, found it locked.

"Are you in there?" He knocked softly and heard a crinkle of paper from inside.

"No, I'm enjoying the sun in the Northern Fungal Swamps of Clom," the Master's voice retorted sarcastically. "Go away, Doctor."

"What are you doing?"

"Believe it or not, I don't need you to get us out of this mess," the Master replied coldly. There was a pause; the Doctor thought he heard faint whispering, and then the Master continued. "I'm refining this scanner _properly_, without your interference and carelessness. Go and play with your monkeys – or talk them into playing with more monkeys." The Doctor raised his eyebrows and leaned against the wall beside the door, his gaze sweeping the room and alighting on Craig's briefcase on the table.

_A planning meeting, eh_? He had rarely been much of a planner, but curiosity was nudging at him; and why not leave the Master to do the work if that was what he wanted? It might keep them both out of trouble for a while.

"All right, then," he said cheerily. "Have a nice day." And, straightening his bow tie with one hand, he picked up the briefcase and departed – making sure to lock Craig's door and slide the key underneath.

...

The bright sunlight filtering through the slits in the blinds woke Craig slowly and painfully. His head was pounding, his arm burned and his whole body felt like lead. His dreams had been strange and disturbed, filled with images of orang-utans kicking a football around a field – a football that turned into a purring cat, which was picked up and handed to him by a white-haired figure with the yellow, slitted eyes and pointed teeth of a cat – but when he tried to take the cat, its fur grew dark and mouldered away into dust, the flesh decaying from its body and seeping into his hands… His eyes flew open and, suddenly nauseous at the memory of the dream, he gagged and had to take several deep, slow breaths before he could roll his head to one side and check his alarm clock. Gradually, the glowing numbers on the display resolved themselves: 14 45.

_The planning meeting_! The dream all but forgotten, he sat bolt upright with a gasp.

"_What_?" Barely even giving himself time to button his shirt, he threw his clothes on and raced for the door. In the hallway, he nearly stopped short at the sight of Kaiser sat halfway up the stairs, his back to Craig. He appeared to be bending over something, speaking softly, almost tenderly, and as Craig hurried past and a snatch of words reached his ears, he saw that it was a long-haired cat.

"…and did you count how many? Hmm, yes…yes, I felt that…but would it be able to…"

Craig only realized that he had been holding his breath when the front door slammed behind him and he exhaled slowly. He glanced at his watch – 2:55pm – and his racing heart accelerated yet again as he dashed down the path.

"…no no no no no…" he was still moaning to himself ten minutes later as he hurtled down the wide corridor of the call centre towards his office. Bursting open the swinging door, he was greeted by the nerve-racking sight of his boss rising from a desk and waving.

"Ah! Afternoon, Craig."

"I'm…_so_…sorry," Craig puffed. "I've got no excuse…" However, before his boss could reply, Craig's heart sank like a stone at a familiar voice from behind a desk.

"…I'm afraid that's not what my screen is telling me, Mr. Lang." Raising his head, the Doctor beamed amicably at Craig and his boss.

"What's he doing here?" For a moment, Craig was too dumbfounded to do little more than gape – but his bewilderment was quickly replaced by irritation and he advanced on the Doctor. "What are you doing here?"

"If _that's_ your attitude, Mr. Lang, I suggest you take your custom elsewhere," said the Doctor into the headset, and to Craig's shock, poked out his tongue and blew a raspberry into the microphone.

"No no no – that's one of my best clients!" This could _not_ be happening – it had to be another bizarre dream – that, or he hadn't yet woken up in the first place. "You can't-"

"Leave off the Doctor – I love the Doctor," his boss interrupted, with a thumbs-up and a wink to the Doctor. "He was brilliant in the planning meeting."

"You…you went to the planning meeting?" Craig stuttered.

"Yes – I was your representative," the Doctor replied matter-of-factly. "Who'd have thought – me, planning something. Wouldn't the Ma- …wouldn't Kaiser be proud of me!"

"K-Kaiser…" Craig's stomach lurched, and a fraction of a second later, it dawned on him why, as a flash of recollection struck him and his voice rose with a note of panic. "Doctor, your boyfriend tried to kill me!"

"He what?" In an instant, the twinkle in the Doctor's eyes had died.

"He…he told me to touch that…that rot stuff," Craig explained breathlessly. "He's at home now – Doctor, he's some sort of psycho, he's talking to a _cat_." The entire office was staring now, but Craig couldn't have cared less – he had never felt so scared in all his life. For a few moments, the Doctor was silent, his eyes shifting from side to side as though calculating something, and then his expression became grim.

"So sorry, Mr. Jorgensen, could you hold? The fate of the universe might be at stake," he said gravely into the headset, and leaped to his feet, tossing the delicate equipment onto the desk. Hurdling a wastepaper basket and knocking over the wall of somebody's cubicle, he made a dive for the door, and Craig, in his haste to follow, bumped into someone carrying a plate and mug from the kitchen corner.

"Craig," the person called after him. "Craig – I applied for a- …where are you going?" But the two men were already gone, leaving a bewildered Sophie holding a mug of coffee dripping onto the carpet.

...

"You…you _knew_ he was a nutcase," Craig was panting as he followed the Doctor through the front door. "That's why you locked my door, isn't it?" The Doctor didn't appear to be listening; he darted through the kitchen door and across the living room to his own bedroom, but was brought up short at the door – it was locked, and he rattled the handle with both hands, letting out a frustrated growl.

"No! The sonic's in there…"

"Doctor, leave him – I'll call the police – they-" The Doctor cut him off.

"Do you have a spare key to this door? _Quickly_, Craig."

"Y-yeah…yeah, there's one in here somewhere…" Craig's hands were trembling almost too much to open the top drawer of the living room cabinet, but he managed to unearth a keychain buried beneath yellowing bills and envelopes, and produced a key that he handed to the Doctor. "Look, I know you want to talk to him, but don't you think…_what_?" His mouth fell open and he felt his knees buckle at the sight that met him when the Doctor pushed open the bedroom door. Of Kaiser, there was no sign, but Craig felt no better for that – since his attention was now seized by the structure almost filling the room. It was roughly pyramidal in shape, with an intricate lattice of bent coat hangers at the point forming a twisting, spiralling mesh of antennae that reached almost to the ceiling. The whole thing was whirling dizzyingly, spinning too fast for Craig's eyes to follow long enough to make out what it had been built out of, but he could have sworn that the base was grounded on the frame of a shopping trolley, and _that_ was a bedside lamp that had just skimmed past the Doctor's knees.

"What's he done to you…?" the Doctor murmured, stepping carefully into the room, and Craig shook his head, aghast.

"Wait…you _knew_ he was making this…_thing_?"

"What, this? This is just a bog-standard makeshift temporal-gravitational equilibration scanner," said the Doctor, kneeling down and ducking to avoid the lamp as it careened past his head. "No – the question is…what is _this_?" Lying almost flat on the floor, he was reaching under the structure and hooking something towards himself.

"You're _both_ insane," Craig breathed, backing steadily into the doorframe and gripping it for support. "Right, that's it – I want you out."

"What?" The Doctor had managed to retrieve the object, and as he pulled it slowly out into the light, Craig saw that it was an old-fashioned shower radio – or had been. Now, a tangle of wires protruded from the back and the volume, tuning and treble/bass adjustment dials were sliding up and down apparently of their own accord.

"You…you heard me," Craig choked. "Get out. Both of you. You've only been here two days, and it's been the weirdest two days of my life – and I thought right, fine, they're a bit weird – but it's not just weird – it's…"

"Craig, I know I owe you an explanation," the Doctor answered, extending the aerial on the radio, his gaze trained on the moving dials, following their movement almost as though he were reading a book. "But I really don't have time…"

"No, I don't need an explanation." Craig began to back out into the living room, his hand on the door. "I'm calling the police, right now."

"No – wait, just-" The Doctor clambered to his feet and made a move towards Craig – and Craig, with a yelp of fright, swung the bedroom door hard.

...

A heavy knot of foreboding was twisting in Sophie's chest as she unlocked the front door to Craig's flat and stepped into the hall. She hadn't caught what he had said to the Doctor back in the office, but the way it had wiped the smile from his face in an instant would have been enough alone to fill her with apprehension. After they had fled the office, she had set down the plate and mug, collected her handbag and excused herself; the boss seemed to share her concern, and jotted down a few brief details of what she could tell him of Craig's new flatmates before giving her the afternoon off.

Pushing the door quietly shut at her back, she opened her mouth to call out, but another voice spoke first.

"Sophie?" Startled, her keys fell from her hand and she spun around towards the stairs, where the voice had come from. Craig must have fixed the faulty lightbulb, she observed, as it lit the top of the stairs and she could see the speaker clearly: Craig's more reserved flatmate, Kaiser. He stood leaning with his back against the wall outside the door to the upstairs flat, slightly hunched over with one hand to his head.

"Are…are you all right?" she asked hesitantly, moving towards the bottom of the stairs.

"I…I don't feel well…" He drew a slow, shaky breath and his shoulders slumped forward. "No – d-don't get the Doctor. Could you…could you come here?"

"Oh…oh, yes, I'll look after you." A rush of sympathy swept over her and she climbed the stairs quickly. How could the Doctor leave him like this? He had obviously been under the weather, and being nearly knocked out at the football game yesterday couldn't have helped. She put an arm around his trembling shoulders. "Here, it's O.K., it's O.K., I've got you – just sit down…" Just then, the sound of raised voices rang out through the silent flat, and she raised her head, turning away from Kaiser to listen. Before she could call out, a cool hand wrapped itself around her mouth and a strong grip on her arms tugged her backwards through the door into the upstairs flat.


	8. Head Trip

The Doctor had moved with the lightning reflexes Craig had so envied at the football match, blocking the door with one foot before it closed.

"Just listen to me," he pleaded. "I know what's going on now – it's a time engine-"

"I don't want to hear it," Craig cut him off. "All right, I won't call the police – I just want you out of my house and _out_ of my life." The Doctor rolled his eyes and shifted his foot so that he was standing facing Craig straight on, still holding the door open.

"Right. No time, got to find him…ooh, I am going to regret this…" Before Craig had a chance to react, the Doctor grabbed him by the front of the shirt and brought their foreheads together in a violent collision. There was a strange plummeting sensation, and suddenly Craig felt his mind flooded with time and space itself – with faces, so many faces, but only one man – with stars and planets and a billion worlds to explore, but only a distant, intangible memory to call home.

"You…_you're Ti-_"

"Yes – now sh-"

"From _Galli-_"

"Sh!"

"You've got a TAR-"

"Yes – now _shut up_!" Once again, the Doctor took him by the shirt front. "Right – specific details…" They both yelled out in pain as their foreheads made contact, and Craig saw the TARDIS vanishing, leaving the two Time Lords in the park; his own advert in the paper shop window, with a post-it note above it – "This one, Amy xx"; a shrewd, redheaded girl, Amy Pond herself; the whirling structure in the bedroom being steadily constructed from the ground up, the Doctor sorting through piles of junk and handing parts to Kaiser – except he wasn't Kaiser, he was…

"Oh my God – that's the _Master_!"

"I am…_never_…doing that…again," the Doctor groaned, rubbing his forehead with one hand and reaching for his earpiece with the other. "Amy? Amy, have you got those plans for the house?"

"Yep," Amy replied promptly. "Right here – what did you want to know?"

"I've worked out what's up there," said the Doctor, while Craig pressed his hands over his mouth and shook his head in disbelief. "Only, the Master's figured it out first, and I think he's gone upstairs, and-"

"Wait – he can't be upstairs," Amy cut in. "There _is_ no upstairs – it's a one-storey building." Craig's eyes widened and he frowned, baffled, but the Doctor merely nodded.

"Perception filter…" he muttered.

"But…but Doctor," Craig stammered. "The Master – he can see through perception filters-

"-can see through perception

"-can see through perception-

"-ception filters-

"-ception filters." A deep rumble through the building accompanied the time loop when it struck, but it didn't last long, and Craig shook himself. "What's it doing?"

"It's been using people to try and launch." The Doctor grabbed at a corner of the scanner to bring it to a halt, and elbowed roughly past Craig to reach the door. "But whenever it does, they get burned up – hence the stain on your ceiling."

"People are _dying_ up there," Craig realized, paling with horror as he stumbled after the Doctor through the living room. "It's killing them!"

"Yes – but the Master is far too clever to let that happen to him, _far_ too clever. Which means…" They had reached the hallway, and Craig's eyes fell on the pink, fluffy keyring on the doormat.

"Sophie!" he cried. "Sophie's up there!" His earlier trepidation vanished into sheer terror, and he elbowed past the Doctor and sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time in his panic. With hardly a moment's hesitation, he shouldered open the door to the upstairs flat – and staggered back, straight into the Doctor, who had followed him through the door.

It was as though they had stepped through into a massive hall – far too big to be above Craig's flat, he was sure. On a slightly raised circular deck, dominating the room, six massive, articulated struts like the claws of some monstrous, black crab stretched to the ceiling. They came together in a dome above a cylindrical column which sprouted out of the centre of the deck, surrounded by four evenly-placed solid shapes like small coffins on the ends of looped pipes – black coffins adorned with intricate gold patterning and a faintly luminescent violet dome near the top. With the only sources of light a dim, white glow from the column and several hazy spotlights that shone down between the struts, they couldn't make out the edges of the hall, and at first, they could only stare.

"Ah, Doctor – finally managed to bring yourself to open that door, did you?" came the Master's icy voice. It wasn't just the Master who stepped forth from the shadows on the other side of the console, though – Craig's heart nearly stopped when the insipid light illuminated the figure of Sophie, her arms pinned behind her back and eyes wide with fear above the Master's hand that was clamped across her mouth. At the sight of Craig and the Doctor, she struggled to free herself, but he pulled her closer, gripping her arms tightly behind her back. "Oh look, isn't that sweet – they've come to rescue you," he hissed in her ear.

"You let her go!" Craig bellowed, lunging forwards, but the Doctor grabbed the back of his jacket before he had taken two steps. Boiling with rage, Craig struggled to pull away, and watching them, the Master's eyes filled with mirth.

"Yes, you know me _so_ well, don't you, Doctor? You know that I could hurt her just like _that_." On the last word, he made a sudden movement forwards, feigning pushing Sophie towards the console, and Craig froze.

"Look, you don't need to hurt her," said the Doctor evenly, his eyes holding the Master's unflinchingly. "No-one else needs to die up here."

"But I've planned this _so_ carefully," the Master pouted. "I've spent all this time gathering data, calculating what this ship can do for me – wouldn't it be a waste not to run one last test?"

"It would be a waste to use her," said the Doctor, holding his voice steady and level. "You know as well as I do that a human brain can't fly this ship – she'll burn up. Let her go." The Master appeared to consider this, and for an instant, Craig was almost hopeful when he nodded.

"No, you're right. It _would_ be a waste – and I am _so_ hungry…" Slowly, savouring the sickened horror on Craig's face, he licked his lips and his mouth twisted into a cruel smile.

"Master, just calm down," the Doctor pleaded. "If we shut down the engine of this ship, we can get the TAR-"

"Doctor? What's going on?" Amy's voice buzzed suddenly in his ear, and the Master's face darkened into a disgusted scowl.

"Turn that off," he ordered. The Doctor raised his hand calmly to the earpiece.

"Doctor, don't you _dare_ cut m-"

"Now take it out. On the floor, where I can see it." Obediently, the Doctor dropped the earpiece. "This is none of her business – and now that _she's_ not wittering in your ear, it's _my_ turn. Actually," he added, "let's give Sophie a turn, shall we? Go on, Sophie, tell Craig how much you want to go to your orang-utan park." He removed his hand from her mouth and took another step towards the console; the violet glow on the dome brightened briefly and then dimmed.

"I…I…oh, Craig, I'm sorry," she half-sobbed. "I don't know what he wants – I-"

"_Tell him_!"

"Y-yes…yes, I do…" she choked. "I just can't- ah!" A surge of dissipating energy rushed through the Master, turning his flesh briefly translucent, and Sophie cried out as she felt the crackling heat of it. "I…I can't stay here all my life, Craig – there's other places out there, other-" She gasped in pain – the violet dome on the coffin-shaped control panel had lit up again and there was a bright glare as tendrils of neon-pink energy shot from it, drawn to Sophie's hands as if to a magnet.

"You see, Doctor?" The Master threw back his head and laughed, and then wrenched Sophie away from the panel and shoved her roughly towards Craig and the Doctor, cutting off the energy. "This ship wants to leave. And you know what? It's not the onl-" He was interrupted momentarily by a shimmering in the air at his side, which solidified into a hologram of an elderly man.

"The correct pilot has been found," the hologram stated expressionlessly. "The correct pi-"

"Shut up, you," the Master snapped, kicking the panel, and the hologram vanished. He turned back to the Doctor. "Do you see now? It's been calling to me all this time. Remember what you said to me, after the Atraxi had gone, outside the TARDIS?" The Doctor nodded slowly, the memory replaying itself in his mind – he remembered clearly the hope that had lit up in his hearts.

_"So, Doctor. Looks like I'm stuck with you."_

_"Well, for the time being, yes…"_

Now, he realized his mistake – he had been a fool to think that it could ever be a permanent arrangement, that the Master wouldn't seize the first opportunity that presented itself. Turning to the control panel, the Master spread his arms wide, welcoming the neon-pink fingers of electricity that reached for his chest.

"You _can't_," the Doctor implored him. "You're a Time Lord – you'll be too much for this ship – if it doesn't explode, the whole solar system will."

"Oh, no." A manic glint entered the Master's eyes as he brought a hand to his chest to take control of the bolts crackling over his hearts. "No, that's where you're wrong. _You_, Doctor, would be too much for this ship. You never know from one minute to the next where you want to go, you don't plan, you just want to see _everything_ – the whole of time and space. But me? I could settle for one thing at a time, all in its proper place. _I_ can control this ship – and it can support me just as well as any other TARDIS." The Doctor could only clench his fists in frustration – even if the Master could survive with this TARDIS, which he doubted, it could spell disaster if he were let loose around time and space with it. He wished with all his hearts that that were not the case – if he could only trust the Master – but despair was beginning to overtake him, clouding his mind as he racked his brain for any solution. His eyes fell on Craig, who was holding Sophie protectively, and something fell into place.

"Craig – put your hand on that panel," he shouted.

"What?" The Doctor could hardly blame the human man for the fear that passed across his face, but time was running short and the Master's hand was moving closer to the glowing dome.

"The ship wants to leave – but _you_ want to stay," he said desperately. "It never wanted you – you're the sofa man, you can't see the point in anywhere else except right here, right now. You can shut the engine down."

"B-but…"

"Quickly, Craig – that panel there – before he stabilizes it. You can do it."

"Are you sure?"

"Go on – tell them, Doctor," the Master spoke up, grinning maliciously. "Tell them you have no idea whether it'll work – you're just clutching at straws and hoping he doesn't look you in the eyes before he burns up." Even as the Doctor faltered, a steely resolve passed across Craig's face and he pulled away from Sophie.

"You're lying," he said with just the slightest tremor in his voice, and smacked his hand firmly onto the panel, yelling out in pain as the static fizzed across his skin.

"No!" The lights flared and the Master brought his other hand up towards the dome, fighting to regain control. With both hands now caught by the ship's energy, he could only stare as the Doctor hurried over to Craig.

"Concentrate, Craig," the Doctor urged frantically. "Why do you want to stay? What's keeping you here?"

"I…I don't know – I just-" Craig stammered, his gaze shifting between the Master and Sophie, whose hands were pressed to her mouth.

"Come on, you've got to fight him. Out of everything you have here, what would you stay for?" Another flare of the lights sent energy crackling up Craig's wrist and he gasped.

"S-Sophie!" he burst out. "I can't leave Sophie – I love Sophie!"

"Oh, _Craig_," Sophie breathed, lowering her hands. "You idiot – I love you too." And before the Doctor could prevent her, she had flung one arm around Craig and her other hand had joined his on the panel.

"_No_!" the Master screamed. "No – I will _not_ stay!" Wild-eyed, his gaze locked onto the Doctor, and pink mingled with blue as his own life force crackled around his hands. "Get them away, Doctor – or I will blast you all into the vortex."

"Please – just think about what you're doing." The Doctor's hearts were racing, but he could only look on, helpless. "That would cause a black hole the size of a solar system…we would all be sucked in – are you ins-" He broke off – there was no light in the Master's eyes now, only a cold fury.

"Say it, Doctor."

"No – no, I-"

"_Say it_!" the Master shrieked. Hearts sinking, the Doctor swallowed hard.

"You're insane," he whispered. For a moment, for the space of a hearts-beat, a pulse of four, the Master was silent – and then the blue-white sparks around his fingers died and he slammed both hands down on the panel. With a hiss and sizzle of singed flesh, Sophie and Craig were flung back from their panel as though they had been struck. Above their heads, green lights flickered on around the great black crown of the time engine and began to spin, faster and faster until they became indistinguishable emerald streaks.

"Get out!" the Doctor bellowed, assisting Sophie to haul Craig to his feet as the time rotor began to pump. "There's nothing we can do – get _out_." Racing for the door across the hall, they stumbled when the whole ship juddered, the floor bucking beneath their feet. "Quick – go, go, go!" The Doctor half-pushed Sophie and Craig through the door ahead of him, and then glanced back. A slender, dark silhouette against the pallid glow of the time rotor, the Master turned with glittering eyes.

"It would never have worked out between us, Doctor," he laughed, and with a final lurch of the ship, the door slammed between them.

It wasn't until he was down the stairs and halfway out the front door that the Doctor became aware that Craig and Sophie were half-dragging him by the arms. Outside, blinking in the bright sunlight, he watched numbly as the entire top floor of the house shimmered and blurred into the metallic black outline of a spaceship that gripped the roof of the house like a monstrous virus. Its pointed legs straightened, thrusting the body of the ship upwards, and then in a blink, it was gone.

...

Wrapped in each other's arms, lost in each other's eyes, Craig and Sophie didn't even hear the Doctor's footsteps crossing the room towards the door until his metal keyring clinked on the kitchen side. Pushing himself up from the sofa, Craig winced and glanced down at his hand – the skin of his palm was blistered and raw, and he saw that Sophie's hand that had not been holding his was the same.

The Doctor's gaze had followed his, and raising their heads, their eyes met. The Time Lord's hand was on the doorhandle; Craig opened his mouth uncertainly, but no words emerged.

"Sorry." The Doctor broke the silence, pain and guilt evident in his eyes and voice. "I shouldn't have brought him here."

"Don't say that." With a gentle smile, Sophie squeezed Craig's arm. "You gave me Craig." Despite the subdued atmosphere in the room, Craig's heart felt a little warmer at her words.

"Yeah," he agreed. "We should be thanking you." The Doctor averted his eyes, but Craig could see the faintest smile pass across his face.

"So, Sophie. Monkeys?"

"Not for me, I don't think." Shivering at the memory of the Master's voice in her ear, she shook her head. "Besides, I wouldn't be able to start for a while now..." Self-consciously, she shifted her injured hand in her lap, and then squeezed Craig's arm again with the other and her tone brightened with fondness. "And who says I can't be happy right here?"

"But wherever she goes, I'm going with her," said Craig decisively.

"That's the idea," the Doctor nodded approvingly. "Well, I suppose I'll leave you two to it…"

"You're on your own again now, aren't you?" Craig asked hesitantly.

"I've got Amy Pond," the Doctor answered, far too quickly. "Speaking of which, I'd better go and-"

"I've been in your head, Doctor."

"Yes…yes, I suppose you have. You want to be careful in there, you know…" The Doctor shook his head, and when he looked up again, his face wore a cheery grin. "Well, you'll be wanting some space, won't you? Don't waste time." And with that, he was gone.

...

Later that evening, as he was putting the leftover pizza in the fridge, gingerly shutting the door with his bandaged hand, a flicker of recollection brushed at the edge of Craig's mind…

_…and still, he smiled into the cameras as the living room window shattered, and Sophie's bloodcurdling scream rent Craig's heart in two…_

…and then it was gone, leaving him with an inexplicable chill running down his spine, and the faint luminescence fading to black from the crack in the wall behind the fridge.

...

"Come _on_, Doctor…" Standing at the console, his hand resting on a handle, the Doctor glanced up at the sound of Amy's voice.

"Ah – right, yes, back in time." He mentally shook himself and pulled the lever, bringing the TARDIS out of the vortex and hopefully near the paper shop where Craig had placed his advert a few days previously. It was just the two of them in the console room now…the Doctor wondered briefly if he had been waiting for an inevitable criticism of his driving, or if his mind had simply been wandering in the unaccustomed emptiness of the TARDIS – it hadn't been that long ago that his capsule had had four occupants. Five even, at one point.

"Oh come on, smile, would you?" Amy scolded him mockingly. "Didn't you say you two always used to run into each other when you were younger? Besides," she added, "he's always been a bit of a loner, hasn't he?"

"Did you find that red pen?"

"Yep – written the note. 'This one, Amy xx'," she read, and hesitated. "Are you _sure_ you don't want me to-"

"Time is a dangerous thing to mess with, Pond." The Doctor straightened up and took the note from her outstretched hand. "Best leave it alone for now." Still, Amy was dawdling, and he watched her impassively until she finally blurted out,

"Did he pick up a girl somewhere?"

"A girl?" the Doctor echoed, genuinely bewildered. "What?"

"Oh, just a guess," Amy shrugged. "I have to guess these things if _you_ won't tell me anything."

"B-but what makes you think…"

"Hmm, let's see…" She pursed her lips and slipped one hand into her pocket. "You spend a few days on Earth, acting 'normal', and then he does a runner…and leaves _this_ behind." From her pocket, she drew a tiny red, velvet box, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. "It's a woman's ring."

"Oh…" If possible, the Doctor's expression became even more melancholic at the sight of it, and he reached out to take the ring box. "No…no, that belonged to a friend I lost. A friend who was only too human…"

* * *

><p><strong>THE END<strong>

By Aietradaea

* * *

><p><strong>Author's notes:<strong>

Wowee! That was _fun_! And hey - you read to the end!

Well, I seem to be making a bit of a pet project of this AU - "The Pandorica Opens" is done, and "The Big Bang" is coming up. Do review - I love hearing from you! And if you want to follow this AU and any other installments in it, add _me_ to your Alerts, not this fic - each episode is a separate fic, and this one's done and dusted.

Thanks for reading!

-Aietradaea:)

P.S.  
>One very awesome <span>Ilssii-Koschei<span> has drawn a little cartoon inspired by this fic, entitled "Socks". It can be found on her DA at fav (dot) me /d4izyx7 - thanks! :D


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